Been a while, right?

Wow, time slips, doesn't it?

The Boyfriend is on his way to California to chase down a dream, so, I'm on my own until our house sells. With that being said, I've had a productive couple of days. The Boyfriend can be a bit of a finicky eater, so I've been making foods that I know he wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.

Lined up for dinner this week:
- Split pea soup
- French onion soup
- Spinach, goat cheese, and squash tart (The Boyfriend had a hissy fit when I told him I was making this. Apparently, it sounds amazing. Initially, I was told that he was uninterested.)
- Mujadara (pronounced moo-jha-dra)

Although I'm going out to dinner tonight, I'm spending the afternoon making dinner for this week. First up: split pea soup.

Let me start by saying I've never been a fan of split pea soup. My mom made it exactly one time that I remember, and I recall not eating it. Now, my mom was a phenomenal cook, but I took one bite of that soup and decided I would rather go to bed hungry. My siblings followed suit. My poor mother. At least my dad loved it.

A few weeks ago, I'd promised two of my co-workers that I'd bring soup for lunch the following day. I had split peas leftover from another recipe and decided to take the plunge. The soup almost didn't make it to work. It was so good that I considered making something else to take so I could horde the rest in my freezer. Alas, it was late, the grocery store was closed, and I didn't truly feel like making more soup. The Boyfriend wouldn't try it (he too has been scarred by bad split pea soup), but lunch the following day was completely silent.

Enough talking, onto the recipe:

• 1 onion, diced
• 1 carrot (medium/largish), diced
• 1 stalk celery, diced
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1 Tbsp dried thyme
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp vegetable base (I use Better than Boullion, but you could just use vegetable broth instead of water)
• 6 - 10 c. water (depending on how thick you want the soup to be)
• 1/2 tsp liquid smoke (optional)

Add onion, carrot, celery, and olive oil to a large, heavy bottomed pot. Cook the vegetables until they are tender.

Now, you have a choice here. You can either: Add everything else to the pot, bring it to a boil, reduce the heat and let it simmer until the peas are falling apart and it feels like silk in your mouth. Or, you can toss everything in your crockpot. This week, I chose the latter, but it's because I needed my stove free so I could caramelize some onions.

I'm eating this with a salad and a nice chunk of crusty bread. And yes, the leftovers are going in my freezer.

Small steps, small steps

I can't believe it's been more than a month since I last posted. I guess life gets in the way sometimes.

G and I are still trying to get grass to grow in our front yard. One side of the yard has verdant fescue, it's a couple inches high, and although there are a couple of thin spots, the grass has taken quite well. The other side, well, I'm at a bit of a loss. We have several sparse patches of grass and a couple of baby Sweet gum trees (not that we particularly wanted saplings in our front yard). I managed to procure some unwanted zoysia sod from a friend, but we won't know if it's taken for another couple of weeks.

G's mom gave me a rabbit foot fern. At the moment, it's sharing our front step with a potted cucumber plant. I'm hoping to get the cucumber plant in the ground by next weekend. G's brother has a superb vegetable garden this year. He brought us fresh salad greens as part of the meal we made for Mother's Day. Right now he's getting his first squash of the season, as well as some early cukes (my cucumber plant looks pitiful by comparison).

Even though my dreams of a vegetable garden didn't materialize, G and I found out that we have a farm in the neighborhood. City Roots is only a couple of blocks from us, and they have an ever expanding list of fruits and vegetables for sale. A few weeks ago, I picked up half a gallon of organic strawberries for $6. Delicious. Unfortunately, some of the berries had been sitting in water over the weekend and the were starting to go bad. It seems like we've gotten a fair amount of rain in the last few weeks, but NOAA is showing my part of the state as being abnormally dry. Here's hoping we don't get into drought status again this year.

Today was a marathon of cooking. I've gotten a little off track as far as cooking at home and making sure I have lunch to take to work. Some of this week's dishes are a little labor intensive, and with summer starting up at the library, I can't afford to not plan ahead. G and I would be eating out every night otherwise.

I found a really nifty website called No Meat Athlete. There are lots of fantastic recipes there, including three that made it onto this week's menu. One recent post is specifically about beans and rice, five different ways. This week we're having beans and rice, Indian style. No Meat Athlete also has a feature called Sweet Tooth Fridays. I made black bean brownies to satisfy my sweet tooth, and as a way to resist temptation at work. There is constantly food at work. Always things like cookies, cake, brownies, or ice cream. I haven't gained weight from eating crap at work, but it certainly isn't healthy. I've been a little lazy lately. I haven't had the foresight to take snacks to work, so when I get the afternoon munchies, I just eat whatever is in the break room. This week I have brownies and strawberries. It's a small step back to where I need to be.

Our last recipe from No Meat Athlete is one I'm really excited about. They're called wheatball subs. The wheatballs aren't actually so much wheat as chickpeas and mushrooms. I have high hopes for these guys. G adores meatball subs (as do I). Since G and I are trying to gradually eliminate meat from our diet, we're looking for suitable replacements for foods we already enjoy. I don't think I'll ever find a replacement for my beloved czirke paprikas, and I don't think I would have a problem with consuming the occasional piece of humanely raised meat.

Bread so good you'll think it's absurd

Yesterday, even though I was utterly exhausted, I was apparently feeling a deep need to bake. G and I decided on sandwiches for dinner, but I didn't think regular sandwich bread would satisfy. So, after mulling it over, I decided focaccia bread was the order of the day. G and I couldn't keep our hands off the bread. Before it was even cool, G called his brother to come get the other half of the loaf so we wouldn't eat it all.

This recipe is an altered version of Tyler Florence's Fabulous Focaccia.

To make delicious focaccia bread, you will need:

• 2 teaspoons rapid-rising dry yeast
• 1 cup warm water
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 3 1/2 to 4 cups flour
• 1 tablespoon coarse salt
• 1/4 cup olive oil

In a bowl combine the water, sugar, and yeast. Wait for the yeast to foam, then while mixing, gradually add the flour. Mix in the salt and olive oil. When the dough starts to come together, turn onto a floured surface, and knead until elastic. Place the dough in a well oiled bowl, turning to prevent a skin from forming, and let it rise in a warm place for 45 minutes to an hour, until the dough has doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Oil a 13x19" baking pan and turn the dough into the pan. Stretch and press the dough into the shape of the pan. Allow the dough to rise, covered, for 15 minutes. When the dough has risen, dimple the surface with your fingertips (don't go all the way through the dough, but make sure you press most of the way through), brush the surface with olive oil, sprinkle with Parmesan cheese, and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until the bread is golden.

Muffins for the mildly annoyed (or, putting that horde of pumpkin to use)

Today I learned that one should never, under any circumstances check one's work email while still on vacation. Inevitably, there will be something in your inbox that will remind you of how much work you need to catch up on, something that annoys you, or something that just makes you shake your head at the ridiculousness of the situation. Most days I go to the gym and work it all out on the treadmill or with the weights. Unfortunately, today is Sunday, meaning I have a very small window of time to get to the gym. And I'm absolutely exhausted from traveling.

Thankfully, I have another tried and true method for dealing with stress - muffins.

There's something wonderful about a warm, soft muffin. I love the process as much as I love the results.

Now, I realize that it's spring and I should be making lemon muffins or something with strawberries, but while hunting for an obscure ingredient this morning, G begged me to make pumpkin bread. I didn't find the ingredient I was looking for (Where, exactly, does one find baker's ammonia?), but G did provide inspiration.

Normally, I would use my grandmother's pumpkin bread recipe. Her recipe is perfect, but for breakfast muffins it's a little too sweet. We needed something different, with less oil and less sugar.

Here's how it all went down.

For this recipe, you will need:

• 2 Tbsp. flax meal*
• 6 Tbsp. water
• 1 c. sugar
• 1 1/2 c. pumpkin **
• 2/3 c. oat flour***
• 1 c. white whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp. allspice
• 1/4 tsp. cloves
• 3/4 tsp. salt
• 1 c. chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 12 muffin tin, or a 9x5 loaf pan.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flax meal and water. It'll start to look thick and have the consistency of an egg white. Add the sugar and pumpkin and stir to combine.

In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients, excluding the walnuts. Add the pumpkin mixture to the dry ingredients, and stir to combine. Mix in the walnuts.

When making muffins, I use a 1/4 c. measuring cup, scoop out the batter, and plop it into the muffin cups. It portions the batter perfectly for 12 muffins. You could also use a size 16 ice cream scoop (2 oz.). That's one of my upcoming kitchen purchases.

*To make flax meal, I put flax seeds in my blender and let it run until it's ground into flour.
**Don't use pie filling. Solid pack pumpkin will do. Good luck finding it this time of year, even at well-stocked grocery stores. There was a shortage last year (yes, seriously), so I ended up buying 15 cans or so when it was finally in stock. I have five cans left. Clearly, we are some pumpkin eating fools.
***I also use my blender to make oat flour. I buy oats in bulk ($0.89 per pound, that's what I'm talking about!) I keep mine in an airtight container in the freezer. I use oat flour for all kinds of stuff.

Post trip reflections and pretty good lasagna

Our trip was a bit of a mixed bag. We saw my family, did some sightseeing, and ate a whole lotta food.

We flew out Tuesday afternoon. We spent probably 2 1/2 hours actually in the air, but our trip took 5 hours. Oy.

Wednesday was my grandfather's 75th birthday. That's the reason we went to see my family. I was pretty excited about seeing my grandfather; I was always his girl. My grandfather's eyes did not light up when he saw me. They only showed confusion. He asked for my mother, even though she died more than four years ago. He thought we were going on a trip. He has grown frail. I had never seen him without a mustache. He's lost weight, his hair is finally grey. Once a well spoken, well dressed man, now my grandfather can barely complete a thought. Dementia is stealing my grandfather from me. It's excruciating to know that there's nothing I can do to stop it.

After we saw my grandfather we went to the Jewish bakery that we've been going to since someone in my family discovered it. It's in Philadelphia's Old City, a few blocks from the Delaware river. There is nothing as lovely as a piece of fresh rye bread, lightly toasted, with a thin layer of butter. We bought three loaves of bread, one unseeded rye, one seeded rye, and one marble rye. We also bought a pound of cookies. My great aunt used to stop by the bakery before church and pick up a pound of leaf shaped cookies. I don't know what's in these cookies, but I would consider a special trip just to have one. I was kicking myself when I got on the plane and realized that I left them at my aunt's house. So it goes.

G and I tried driving around Philly by ourselves on Thursday. The morning was fantastic. We went to Eastern State Penitentiary. The audio tour is superb. I'm usually not into audio tours, but this tour is narrated by Steve Buscemi and is completely self paced. It was the best of both worlds for me. I picked up lots of random knowledge, and I got to take as many pictures as I wanted. Eastern State Penitentiary has entirely too much history for me to get into here, but Al Capone was incarcerated for eight months in 1929 - 1930. Eastern State is supposedly haunted, but G and I didn't feel any "presence" or anything. Nonetheless, it was a highlight of our trip. After Eastern State, we tried to make it to Reading Terminal Market. Unfortunately, it was lunchtime, and after spending almost an hour driving around with no luck on a parking spot, G and I decided it might be better to head back over the bridge. We had a pretty good lunch at a diner and headed back to my aunt's. Dinner was with my uncle. That was awesome.

We went to Ocean City on Friday. G and I shared a soft pretzel and a frozen, chocolate dipped banana. Delicious. We also went out to dinner with my dad. Pizza was split between four of us, and G and I shared a plate of hot wings. Afterward we went out for frozen custard. G and I have a running joke that I always order the best thing on the menu, even if we're eating somewhere new. I never get to finish whatever I order; G is like a seagull swooping in for crumbs. In this case, however, G definitely ordered the better custard. His was peanut butter flavored. It tasted just like Nutter Butter cookies. So good. Definitely one of the best parts of our trip.

We came back to SC today. My aunt made us breakfast this morning, then we headed to the airport. I'm exhausted. I'm glad I had the foresight to freeze that lasagna. Sometimes neurosis pays off.

For this lasagna, you will need:

• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 1 large can tomato sauce
• 3 tablespoons Italian seasoning (or 1 tsp each dried basil, parsley, and oregano)
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• teaspoon garlic powder
• 2 cups chopped mushrooms
• 6 cups chopped fresh spinach
• 1/2 cup roasted red bell peppers
  
• 2 cups fat-free ricotta
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 package whole-wheat lasagna noodles (about 8 oz, or 9 noodles)
• 1 1/2 cups shredded part-skim mozzarella

Saute the onions, when they are transparent, add the mushrooms, and cook until the water evaporates. Add the Italian seasoning and tomato sauce. Allow the mixture to simmer while you put together the other ingredients. In a medium bowl, combine the ricotta, spinach, nutmeg, and half the mozzarella. Remove the sauce from the stove, and in a 9 x 13" pan layer the noodles, then the cheese mixture, then the sauce, then more noodles, continuing until you run out of ingredients. Top with the rest of the mozzarella and bake in a 350 oven until it's golden brown and bubbly.

Today a rabbi taught me how to make challah

Though, to be fair, this wasn't a one-on-one type thing. G and I went to a Jewish festival this afternoon and after gorging ourselves on latkes, bagels, and pita bread, we wandered into a series of lectures about traditional Jewish food. The challah we tried was divine, and the rabbi was quite a character. Unfortunately, we weren't able to stick around for his wife to teach us how to make matzoh balls.

We went to a mock bar mitzvah. I was vaguely familiar with the occasion, but growing up in a small Southern town doesn't lend itself to much exposure to Jewish culture. We have much more in common than many of us are able to admit. The occasion, in some ways, reminds me of the Rite of Confirmation. Though Catholics are considered full members of the Church from the time of their baptism, the process of being confirmed is meant to be a time of study and meditation. After confirmation, one has a fuller communion with the Church, and one is considered an adult. My understanding is that preparation for a bar/bat mitzvah is more intense, learning Hebrew, preparing a section of the Torah, leading the congregation in prayer, and meditating on the teachings of the section of the Torah the candidate has prepared. It is a recognition of adulthood. I'm sure I'm oversimplifying, but I did notice commonalities this afternoon. I think that if more people were able to focus on what we have in common, the differences, while still there, would be less important.

G and I are going out of town next week. We'll be visiting my family. I don't know how excited G is, but I'm practically packed. Because we are going out of town and I won't have time to try the challah recipe before I leave, I won't be posting it until we get back. My grandfather turns 75 next week, and I can't wait to see him.

I don't get to go home very often. Home is a ten hour drive, a week off work, and until this trip, time away from G. G will finally get to go to the custard stand down the street from my aunt and uncle. We'll get to feed the turtles in the pond at the custard stand, we'll get to go the bakery that makes the best rye bread I've ever tasted, and I'll get to see most of the people I love. I've even been promised that I'll get to go to the best Chinese place in the state.

Being the neurotic individual that I am, I insist that we clean the house and eat everything that might not last a week in our refrigerator. I even thought ahead and prepared and froze a lasagna for the night we get back.

Tonight's dinner is one of our go to meals when we don't have much in the way of food in the house. We have certain pantry items that are always on hand: tinned tomatoes, pasta, rice, olive oil, garlic, you get the idea. G and I love capers and olives, so we normally keep them on hand. With the addition of anchovy paste, we have the foundation for a killer meal. Pasta puttanesca so delicious that it tastes like my (non-existent) Italian grandmother has been slaving in the kitchen for hours. Got unexpected guests? Make this, and you might not be able to get rid of them.

I shamelessly stole this recipe from Sam Zien (you know, Sam the Cooking Guy). My version follows.

You will need:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon anchovy paste
• 2 large cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon capers
• 2 ounces Kalamata (Greek) Olives, coarsely chopped
• 28 oz can whole Italian tomatoes
• pasta
• Freshly grated Parmesan

While bringing a pot of water to a boil, add to a large saute pan, the olive oil, anchovy paste, and garlic. Cook over low/medium until the garlic is golden (just a little color). Add the olives, capers, and tomatoes. Take the back of your spoon and smoosh the tomatoes. They'll make this awesome, satisfying sound. G hates it, but I love the way it sounds and think it's funny when seeds shoot out all over the saute pan (and sometimes stove and walls). Smash the tomatoes into small pieces. This dish is particularly fun to make when you're mad at a group of people. Anyway, by this time your water should be boiling. Cover the sauce, turn down the heat a notch, and add the pasta to the boiling water, cooking until it's tender. Your sauce should have been simmering beautifully this entire time. Drain the pasta, and serve it with sauce and freshly grated Parmesan.

Total time from pantry to table? 20 minutes. That's it. I'm not really sure how many people this serves, probably 4. We always have a ton of sauce left over. If we're feeling saucy, we use it for pizza later in the week. Usually, I just eat it for lunch the next day.

Sam the Cooking Guy is awesome. His food philosophy is spot on. His recipes are fast, easy, and most importantly, delicious. He doesn't demand that people use hard to find, expensive ingredients. Our tube of anchovy paste wasn't that expensive (though it did require a special trip to Fresh Market), and it will last several months, giving us many servings of pasta puttanesca.

This week I was a storyteller at a fairly prominent festival. I'm beat. Ok, I'm off to finish my book. I'm in the home stretch. After tomorrow's book discussion, I'm done with intellectual heavy lifting at work until the end of May. The calm before the storm.

Baked oatmeal

The last couple of weeks have been crazy busy. G has been home while he waits for his first day at his new job, and I've been tied up with work commitments and trying to make sure that I get to the gym a few times a week.

Normally, I make a big batch of granola, and G and I snack on that throughout the week. I might have a bowl in the morning, and grab a handful to take with me to the gym after I get off work. Granola hasn't happened the last couple of weeks.

Instead, I made baked oatmeal this week. I'd never eaten baked oatmeal before, but it's kind of like a less sticky, slightly chewy granola bar. It's worked out perfectly. It's exactly what I've needed this week: portable, filling, and delicious.

For baked oatmeal, you will need:

• 2 cups oatmeal
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 c. rice milk
• 1/4 c. orange juice
• 1/2 c. walnuts

Mix everything together, press it into an 8x8 baking dish, and bake it at 350 for 25 minutes, or until the edges are golden.