White Fluffy Icing

Musings of a reasonably competent home cook.

Posts Tagged vegetarian recipes

Inferiority

Nov 19

Posted by Laura in Baking, Food of Love | 6 Comments

Life is easier now that we can bake cookies together.

Motherhood doesn’t come easily to me.

Don’t get me wrong, The Boy is thriving and I love him more than I ever dreamed possible, but parenting just isn’t a natural talent of mine.

Remember when you learned to play basketball for the first time, in gym class, and you slowly realized that some people just don’t have any hand-eye coordination?  It’s sort of like that.  When my friends hear my questions and concerns and frustrations about being a mom, they’re thinking, Why can’t she just put the ball in the basket?

An example:  When The Boy was but a wee thing — a month old, perhaps — my friends encouraged me to venture out.  Start small, they said.  Run a quick errand, or get a cup of coffee.  You’ll be surprised at how easy it is.

So I did.  I made sure he had a full belly, then put him in a fresh outfit.  Perhaps more noteworthy, I put me in a fresh outfit.  I packed an extra set of everything and set out for our two mile journey to the nearest coffee shop.

The drive was pleasant enough.  It was a sunny day, and when I looked back every five seconds, The Boy was oblivious, content.

My friends were right, I thought, it’s nice to be out.  We arrived uneventfully at the coffee shop.  I unclicked his bucket seat and carried him in.

It was about two o’clock on a weekday afternoon.  Aside from the baristas banging around behind the bar, it was quiet.  On a momentary break from life, the patrons were all quietly reading or pecking on a gadget or sipping coffee.  It was an oasis.  We had all escaped, including me.  I was out.

I walked to the counter, gently set the bucket on the floor, and dug around for my wallet.  That’s when the dream started to unravel.

Just as the barista asked what she could get for me, The Boy started to whimper.  Oh crap.  I reached out with my foot and tipped the round-bottomed bucket ever so slightly, to make it rock, and then quickly ordered a medium coffee to go.  Maybe if I acted like I knew what I was doing, it would all be okay.

For his part, The Boy was not amused.  The whimper quickly turned into a fuss.  My shoulders crept skyward, toward my earlobes.  Please tell me this isn’t happening.

The fuss turned into a cry, which quickly escalated into a howl.  I tossed some money on the counter, grabbed the coffee, and then turned and froze, staring down at my son.  How was I going to carry this heaping bucket-o-Boy and a cup of hot coffee at the same time?  And even if I could manage that, how was I going carry all that AND get my keys out AND unlock my door AND heave him back into the car?  I needed another arm.  (Octopus mamas must have it soooo easy.)

"Coffee shops aren't my thing. I'd rather hang in the kitchen."

The Boy kept howling, red now.  The bubble of our communal oasis had been burst — pillaged, sacked, plundered.  I could feel the intensely hot laser beams from everyone’s eyeballs, staring.  Now that I think about it, this explains why I broke out into a sweat.  Will someone please remind me why hot coffee was a good idea?

I had to get out of there.  I tucked the handle of the bucket into the crook of my strong arm and grabbed the coffee with the other hand.  I lurched like a zombie towards the door — bucket-toting arm lifted for leverage, coffee arm almost fully extended in anticipation of the now-certain spill, which would surely land directly on my infant son’s face and scald him beyond recognition.  Really?, I chided myself.  Hot coffee?

Outside, scorching tears of frustration, embarrassment and ineptitude sprang from my eyes as I ditched the cup in the garbage can and continued toward the car.  Once there, I looked him over.  His diaper was dry, his belly still full.  Nothing was poking or pulling or pinching him.  Why was he screaming?  Had I somehow dislocated his arm?  Were we being pursued by machete-wielding guerrillas, unbeknownst to me?  I looked around, just to be sure.

I eventually gave up, clicked his bucket back into the car, and drove home.  He screamed the whole way.  In fact, he screamed so loud and for so long, that he started to lose his voice.  (I challenge you to find that in a parenting book.)

Against my better judgment, I’m going to be perfectly honest with you and admit to something unflattering and quite uncourageous.  The thought that was going through my head as I pulled into the driveway was this:

I went and had a BABY and now I’m stuck in this HOUSE for the rest of my LIFE.

I’m about as extroverted as they come.  The thought of having to choose between staying home and breaking out in hives from the stress of “being out” was unbearable.  I felt as though I’d just heard my own death knell.

Things got better, of course.  The Boy grew and changed.  I grew and changed.  I went back to work, which helped.  He learned to crawl, then walk, then talk.  He’s no less demanding now, actually, but at least we understand each other.

Here’s another unflattering admission:  When I’m in quiet public places, like coffee shops and churches and movie theaters, and I hear a baby screaming, I secretly like it.  Even more so when it’s a mother, and she looks flustered, mopping her brow.  Isn’t that terrible?!

I’m not taking joy in their frustration, mind you; I’m just relishing the fact that I’m not alone.

Actually, I like to think of it this way: I’m curing myself of a quite-serious inferiority complex, one fussy baby at a time.

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In hindsight, a tiny coffee shop was not the greatest venue for a first adventure – I didn’t realize just how loud a baby could be in small quiet space.

My second mistake was actually ordering coffee.  What I should have done is ask for a cookie – a highly portable, room temperature, easily-scarfed-if-I-suddenly-have-to-carry-my-kid cookie.

The problem is, food at coffee shops is generally miserable.  So The Boy and I made cookies ourselves, which I adapted from the November issue of Food & Wine magazine.

Cranberry Chocolate Chip Cookies

Adapted from Dried Cranberry and Chocolate Cookies, Food & Wine, November 2011

1 1/2 cups dried cranberries
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup quick-cooking oats (or regular rolled oats)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg, room temperature
1 large egg yolk, room temperature
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips


Preheat the oven to 325°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.  Cover the cranberries in hot water and let soak for at least 5 minutes, but not more than 10 minutes.  Drain the cranberries; set aside.


Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a standing mixer fitted with the paddle, beat the butter and both sugars at medium speed until creamy, about 3-4 minutes. Add the egg followed by the egg yolk and vanilla, beating well between additions and scraping down the side of the bowl as necessary.  Add the flour mixture, chocolate chips and cranberries all at once and stir just until combined.


Spoon heaping teaspoons of the dough onto the baking sheets, 2 inches apart. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until the cookies begin to brown at the edges. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheets, then transfer them to a rack to cool completely.


Store in an airtight container.

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How To Grow A Nine Pound Baby

May 13

Posted by Laura in Food of Love | 4 Comments

There are lots of babies in my world at the moment. My dear friend Lisa just had her third a few weeks ago, Matt’s first cousin Danielle just had her first mere days ago, my sister-in-law Melissa is expecting her third in a few short months, and in April, three of my first cousins, one being dear Leah, each had babies within about 18 hours of one another. I hope your family and friends are procreating, dear readers, because my network is plotting a full-scale planetary takeover. (Luckily for you, we’re a pretty nice bunch.)

Of course, hearing all the requisite stories from the front lines of pregnancy and childbirth reminded me of my own experience incubating and birthing a nine pound baby.

Yeah, you read that correctly: The Boy was nine pounds at birth. Texas-size, ya’ll.

Outside of the pure genetics involved, it was mostly my fault. Oh, I didn’t set out to grow a gigantic baby, of course, but lacking any real sense about how this should all go, bathing one’s zygote in a stout formula of nutrients and calories seemed like a motherly thing to do.

My primal maternal cravings helped: a glass of whole milk, ice cold, was just about the most exciting thing going in those days. Fruits and vegetables were high on my list, too, along with brown rice, quinoa, and every kind of legume under the sun. I also had the healthy fat thing covered – wild salmon was in the weekly rotation, olive oil abounded, and my go-to snack at home was to halve an avocado, ditch the pit, sprinkle with a little kosher salt, and grab a spoon.

Outside of listening to what my body wanted, my only rule was to try and eat something of every color, every single day. That may sound easy, but blue is a tuffy, especially in winter. I ate a lot of black beans and smoothies with frozen blueberries.

The other side effect of eating your colors is that by the time you check them all off, you’ve eaten a lot of food. As a reward, if I possibly still had an interest in eating something else, it could be anything I wanted. Ummm, can you say Ben & Jerry’s? Dairy was my friend.

Between all that and the prenatal vitamins, there was no nutrient The Boy went without during gestation. I figured he would suffer quite enough from my complete lack of maternal instincts once he was born, so we might as well make the most of it and spoil him early.

As a result, my pregnant belly looked like the ones on TV that are obviously fake – like I had a huge watermelon under my shirt. At seven months, I looked like I was about to pop. Not swollen, mind you, just… huge. In line at the grocery store, I heard people behind me audibly gasp when I turned to load my things onto the belt – while facing forward, they couldn’t tell I was pregnant. But at a profile… oh… my … God.

During my last month, I couldn’t use a regular bathroom stall if the door opened inward, because once inside, I couldn’t close the door. My belly was too big. Not kidding.

The funny thing was that I gained only the textbook healthy amount of weight. At my checkups, the nurses would point and laugh and give me a hard time, then once I was on the scale, their eyebrows would pop up and they’d say, “Wow, right on track.” It was all baby, baby.

We opted not to find out whether we were having The Boy or The Girl, because I had irrational fears of being inundated with mountains of pink rhinestone-studded bedazzled princessy stuff.

Right before our doctor unzipped my belly during the c-section I never expected, the doctor peered over the curtain and said through her medical mask: “I predict a nine pound baby boy.”

Minutes later, she held him up for us to see. One of the nurses said, “He looks like a MAN!,” and just at that moment, The Boy let out a lusty roar, and let the ice cold air of the operating room fill his sweet lungs.

Hello, World. You will never be the same.

And it never was.

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This time of year, with all the fruit in season, it’s easy to eat your colors.  I know it’s kind of pedestrian, but one of my favorite things to serve at baby showers is fruit skewers — they are beautiful, nutritious, and dead simple to make.  (Spear fruit decoratively with skewers. The End.)  The ones in the photo are regular skewers, but for parties, I actually prefer the daintier 3- or 4-inch skewers.

I played around with several versions of a yogurt-based dip until I came up with one I liked, and it’s super easy, too.  Play around with substitutions… I’ll bet it would work great with sour cream, but I like the tang of yogurt.

 

Vanilla Honey Yogurt Dip

1 cup plain yogurt (I use non-fat… next time I plan to try Greek non-fat yogurt)
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Whisk all ingredients together in a small bowl; refrigerate if not using immediately. Stir again before serving.

Can be made 1 day ahead and refrigerated overnight.

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I Firmly Resolve…

Jan 9

Posted by Laura in Food of Love | 15 Comments

Hey.  Howdy.  Hiya.  I cannot believe we’re over a week into 2011 already.

Did you make any resolutions?  I wasn’t going to, but at the last minute, I did.  In 2011, I am going to figure out how to be more mindful.

Mindful?  Yep.  Mindful.

In November, I lost my wallet.  Twice.  In one week.

I’m not talking about scratching my head and wondering, Gee, I wonder where my wallet wandered off to? I’m talking about leaving it in a shopping basket in the middle of a grocery store parking lot, and driving away.  Seriously.  Both times.  You would think that losing my wallet a mere four days prior would have prevented the SAME EXACT mishap the second time around.  But… you’d be wrong.

Also in November, as you know, I tried my best to ruin a turkey.  You’d think that cooking a turkey for the first time, and for first-time guests, and on top of that, knowing that I was going to write about it… well, you would think that would make me pay a little closer attention.  Wrong again.

In December, there was the Great Cake Flop.  And flop is exactly the right way to put it. Wildly overcooked fettuccine has more personality than those poor chocolate ribbons did.  More on that later, but… you’d think that the daunting cover photo alone would extract a little more concentration on my part.  To say nothing of the fact that I’d invited several people over for something I called “cake and cocktails.”  You would think.

And then New Year’s rolled around, and because of the way the menu worked out, Marc and Jamie wound up doing most of the work.  Which was a-okay with me (sort of), but one of the few things I was contributing was homemade bread, to sop up the sauce from Marc’s beautiful mussels.  So I chose a chewy Tuscan-style loaf, thinking it would be just the guy for the job.  And the dough was beautiful, just beautiful, and it was set to rise during the drive over, so I could bake it on-site, and… and… I left it on my kitchen counter.

Amazing, isn’t it?  The seemingly limitless bounds to my absent-mindedness?  I think so.

Later, I told Meredith about my resolution to figure out how to be more mindful.  Ever the pragmatist (which is part of why I love her so much), she asked, and, uh, how exactly do you plan to accomplish that? I dunno, I said, but I’m gonna.  I have to.  I can’t walk around utterly disgusted with myself this often.

So that’s my resolution: be more mindful.  If any of you have any insight or advice on that topic, I’d love to hear from you.  Otherwise, you can find me wandering the aisles of the self-help section at the local bookstore.

A more normal, if not the most common, resolution is to lose weight and/or generally eat better food.  And even if you have no long-term intentions of doing such a thing, you might find yourself craving lighter, simpler fare these days, after all those weeks of hors d’oeuvres, cocktails, cookies, and the like.  I was kicking this idea around a bit, looking for inspiration, when, what to my wondering eyes should appear?!  Bon Appetit published a foodie detox plan, with recipes that looked promising, interesting, and often included ingredients I’d not worked with before (and some that I’d never even heard of before).  I took it as a sign and ran with it.

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Omelet with Mushrooms, Thyme, and Caramelized Onions

First, here’s the link to the plan itself: Bon Appetit’s Food-Lover’s Cleanse.  In addition to a full two-week meal plan, it includes guidelines, author introductions, and ingredient suggestions for formulating your own plan.  Plus, the main author is following the plan herself and keeping a daily journal. Pretty cool stuff.

I skimmed through and tested a few out for you.  Here’s what I learned:

Breakfast

Omelet with Mushrooms, Thyme, and Caramelized Onions. This was a big hit with both me and Matt.  I really like the idea to make the filling ahead of time, or even freeze it.  Next time I have an abundance of onions with nowhere to call home, I’m making a vat of this and stashing it in the freezer.  The only thing I would change is adding the smallest little sprinkle of grated Swiss on top, for a twangy little punch.  Which breaks one of the rules about no dairy, but uh, whatever.

Warm and Nutty Cinnamon Quinoa. I really liked this one, and was surprised that Matt ate a whole serving of it, too.  Quinoa is a bit of an acquired taste, I’ve found, but its nutritional punch cannot be ignored, and the cinnamon and berries balance the flavor of the grain.  The leftovers were really nice the next day, too.  I’ll be making this again.

Warm and Nutty Cinnamon Quinoa

Almond Banana Smoothie. Eh, nothing to right home about here, although it did introduce me to almond milk, which is a nice alternative to soy for The Boy, who is allergic to dairy.  It also opened my eyes to the idea of making smoothies for him, and he liked this a lot.  (“It’s COLD, mama!”… and then, later, “There’s bananas in there!”)

Lunch

Avocado Tartine / Winter Vegetable Crudites / Citrus Shallot Vinaigrette. You can’t get any simpler than this tartine, and for an avocado lover like moi, this is a slam dunk.  Matt, however, was a different story.  He liked it well enough, but after eating it, he asked, “What’s for lunch?”  The vinaigrette was nice, given its simplicity.  I like how the recipe included tips for balancing and brightening the flavors after tasting.

Midday Snack

Winter Vegetables, Avocado Tartine

Vanilla Date Smoothie. I found this to be too sweet, and I thought perhaps the almond milk was to blame.  I tried a second batch with regular milk, with similar results.  Which can only mean that the dates are the culprit, so tread carefully.  What does one do with 4 servings of too-sweet smoothie, you might ask?  Well, let’s just say that bourbon cuts right through the sweetness… oh wait, I’m breaking another rule again. Whatever.

Low-fat yogurt with 1 tangerine and 1 ounce shaved dark chocolate. This is straightforward enough, but I would like to take this opportunity to say that any detox plan that includes avocados, dark chocolate, and steak (as you’ll see in the dinner section) is a plan I can fully support.

1 apple and 1 tablespoon cashew butter with 2-4 rye crisp crackers. I had cashew butter on the grocery list, and I managed to see it, pick it up, look at it… and then, inexplicably, return it to the shelf without buying it.  Now if I can just remember what that New Year’s resolution was… hopefully I wrote it down somewhere.  The rye crisp crackers are really good though, and apple and peanut butter made it a great snack.  This one’s a winner.

Pan Roasted Chicken with Persillade / Endives, Apples, and Grapes / Roasted Sweet Potatoes

Dinner

Pan Roasted Chicken with Persillade / Endives, Apples, and Grapes / Roasted Sweet Potatoes. The chicken didn’t do much for me, honestly.  I was excited about the persillade, as it was new to me, super simple, and had that whole low-cal, high flavor thing going for it.  But… meh.  It was okay.  The roasted sweet potatoes were crazy easy, and scratched the itch for filling, healthy comfort food.

Regarding the endive, I didn’t realize until it was time to cook that this was a warm side dish… I thought it was going to be cold, like a tutti frutti salad kinda thing.  Interesting.  Sauteeing apples and grapes in butter made me want to say oui-oui and tres chic a little too often, which did nothing to improve its outlook with Matt, as the only acceptable preparation for grapes is washing them.  Bottom line: I liked it, even left over.  He couldn’t get past the warm grapes.

Five-Spice Beet Soup / Seared Grass-Fed Hanger Steak / Warm Escarole Salad with Mustard Vinaigrette. I took a leap of faith on the soup, because I hadn’t tried cooked beets since grade school.  Turns out, they’re still pretty yucky, even though I know they are a super food.  I made a note to sit down and try a bowl full of beety goodness again in twenty years — I’ll let you know how that turns out.  Until then, raw beets in small doses on my salads will have to suffice.

Five Spice Beet Soup

I couldn’t find hanger steak in my local supermarket, and I didn’t have the time or inclination to make a trip to Central Market for it.  I did find escarole, but I’m way too spoiled with organic pre-washed greens, so I didn’t find that it was worth the hassle.  I did, however, like how the mustard vinaigrette was made from the leftover citrus vinaigrette.

Nighttime Snack

1 orange with pomegranate molasses or honey. I didn’t find pomegranate molasses, and again, wasn’t up for a special trip over it, so honey had to do.  Afterwards, I felt like Matt: “What’s for lunch?”

1 ounce of dark chocolate and rooibos tea with honey. I find that a smidge of dark chocolate keeps me from feeling deprived when I’m trying to “be good”, so I’m totally feeling the groove here.  I was surprised to find rooibos tea at my local supermarket, and even more surprised by how much I liked it… it tasted like I’d added straight vanilla extract to my tea water.  So much so, in fact, that I made a second cup of “tea” with straight vanilla, and I gotta tell ya, it didn’t taste all that much different.

2-3 dried figs, a handful of pistachios, and decaf tea with honey. Yum, yum, and yum.  I liked the sweet raisiny goodness of the figs with the salty pistachios, and this was much more satisfying that the orange/honey combo. As a bonus, I discovered that The Boy enjoys dried figs, which I did not see coming, and absolutely love.

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All in all, I was impressed, and I’ll continue to cherry pick ideas from the rest of plan to try. (Next up: Edamame Hummus.)  There are some very satisfying, inspiring ideas here that made me want to get in the kitchen and expand my horizons.  Giving up dairy, simple carbs, and processed foods was never easier.

If you try anything from the plan, I wanna hear about it!

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Brace Yourself

Dec 29

Posted by Laura in Food of Love | 11 Comments

Friends, we’re in for a wild ride.

First, New Year’s is around the corner, and as you know, we have standing plans with our friends Marc and Jamie to stay home, cook, and toast the new year together.  It’s so nice to know that we have one day set aside to catch up — really catch up — over a matter of hours.  Not a quick lunch date, where you feel compelled to give the Readers’ Digest version of everything.  Not an email thread written absently in bits and bytes, between this errand and that appointment.  (I’m a blogger who struggles with restraint, and insists on writing proper thank you notes, yet I’m a horrific pen pal.  Ironic, isn’t it?  When you figure that out, let me know.)

We’re still working on the menu, but this year’s theme is seafood extravaganza!  Which you must say with the booming voice of a radio announcer from the 1940s:  Seafood!  Extrava-GAN-za!

So far we’re having lobster quesadillas, Marc’s mussels in wine sauce (with homemade bread for sopping), and seared tuna over fennel mashed potatoes with a salad — probably arugula — on the side.  Dessert is to be determined, as the angel on my right shoulder is whispering cranberry and vanilla bean sorbet, but the devil on my left is coyly suggesting a decadent chocolate cake.  We shall see.

And speaking of decadent chocolate cake, I’ve already made the cake on the December cover of Bon Appétit once.  And I totally, completely, utterly flunked out.  In front of a house filled with guests.  Okay, a kitchen filled with guests, but still.  I had no idea what went wrong, but my intuition told me that it was me, and not the recipe.  I kicked it around, re-read the recipe umpteen guh-jillion times, talked it over, debated the issue feverishly with whomever would listen, and yet could not figure out what I’d done wrong.  And then it hit me square in the face.  I know my mistake, and I will re-attempt.  Soon.  The rest, my friends, you must wait for.

But let me warn you now: after New Year’s, and after I redeem myself with this @#$% cake, we’re detoxing.  But foodie-style.  I’ve known this day of reckoning was coming, as many a pair of pants in my closet no longer fit… but I was truly loathing this comeuppance, as it meant falling back on some tried and true lowish-calorie, highish-fiber standby’s for a bit.  I must admit, the very thought of this necessary endeavor made me want to fall asleep at the stove, but then I found a source of inspiration for a challenging, tasty, quasi-gourmet method of detox that is sure to inject a little excitement into the process.  All I can tell you is: stay tuned.

So New Year’s excess will be followed by a detox, with a chocolate cake thrown somewhere in between.  This should get interesting.  As I said, it’ll be a wild ride.

The problem with this schedule is that by the time we’re finished with the detox, we’ll be talking about Super Bowl food, which means it’ll be early February, and then we’ll roll right into Valentine’s Day.  And here on the Gulf Coast, Valentine’s Day is practically spring, and we’ll move on to berries and rhubarb and microgreens and goodness knows what else, but winter’s comfort food will be a distant memory.

And that’s why I’m writing you today.  I’ve been meaning to tell you about my absolute, hands-down, favorite comfort food in the whole wide world.  And if I don’t tell you today, I’ll have to wait another year, and that simply won’t do.  So, here goes:

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Almost every human characteristic has a yin and yang.  Your spouse’s “stubbornness” within marriage is called “tenacity” at work.  The perennial U’s I got in grade school for “Unsatisfactory” behavior (due to chatting during class) translates to my being a master at small talk.  A so-called detriment in one setting is a tremendous asset in another.

And so it is with denial.  People accuse each other of being in denial as though it were leprosy; and it’s true that in some cases, it’s a debilitating, paralyzing condition.  But it’s also a coping mechanism.  It allows us to take in huge, momentous heaps of information in small, digestible pieces.  In this sense, denial is a blessing.  It’s our brain’s way of turning the spigot down to low, so that we can really understand what’s happening, bit by bit.  It’s like that one-handed catch on tippy toes in the endzone: you wouldn’t have believed it if you hadn’t seen it over and over in slow motion.

Denial, when it really counts, eludes me.  It’s not in my DNA.  And I miss it, dearly.

Let me give you an example.

In January 2006, my mom canceled a date with me and Aunt Denise because she was running a fever, which is a big deal for a transplant patient, because they take tons of medications to suppress their immune systems.  The fever turned out to be a symptom of an infection that for a normal person would mean a round of antibiotics and a couple of days on the couch, but for mom, it meant a week-long trip to the hospital.

Long story short, her doctors did a routine CT scan of her kidneys during the hospital stay, just to make sure all was well.  By the time the CT scan images were ready, she was home and over the infection.  No big deal, right?

The next thing I remember is sitting with my parents in the hospital office of my mom’s nephrologist, to discuss the results of the CT scan.  And if you know anything about nephrologists, or parents, you know that the kids of the patient don’t get called in unless something is up.  I was wearing a navy skirt suit, with brown pumps, and hose, because A) my industry was the last to accept pantyhose-free business attire for women, and B) given A, my industry certainly hadn’t embraced taupe or beige as a coordinate with navy, at this point.  My, how things have changed since then.  But, as usual, I digress…

So, I’m sitting there, with Mom, Dad, and this kidney expert.  And he did this move straight out of an episode of ER, dramatically shoving the films of Mom’s innards into a backlit display panel on the wall.  I didn’t need to be a radiologist to see why they asked me to be there: the dark clouds inside mom’s left kidney said it all.  (For the non-informed, fuzzy blobs are not at all what you want in a kidney.  Or any other organ, really.)

The doctor started yakking about these blobs, and how, given her history of polycystic renal disease, they really should investigate.  Via surgery.  He was sooooo smooth.  Such a good doctor.  It was obvious that he’d really paid attention in Bedside Manner 101.

But I was the Girl Who Knew Too Much.  I knew that the cysts from polycystic renal disease were prone to developing into tumors, and these blobs were almost surely cancer.  I knew that they had been monitoring Mom with routine scans since her transplant, and that we wouldn’t be having this conversation if something hadn’t suddenly changed.  And sudden changes are another sign of cancer.

I asked what the worst case scenario was.  He said something vague, like “it’s hard to say,”  but the look in his eyes told me all I needed to know.

My gut turned to mush.  I pretended that my phone vibrated with a phone call, and muttered something about the office, and needing to take it.  I closed the door gingerly, and then bolted for the restroom.  I didn’t think I’d make it through my valiant fight with my stupid pantyhose, but I prevailed.  And about two seconds later, I started seeing stars, and I realized, someone’s going to break in here an hour from now and find me on the floor with my pantyhose literally in a wad. Being a proper Southern woman, this simply would not do.

So, I fought back the little birdies that were tweeting around my head, and wrestled myself into a presentable state, whereupon I stumbled out of the restroom and collapsed at the nearby nurse’s station.  By this point, my parents had finished the consultation and found me down the hall, in an exam room, on a gurney, hooked up to a blood pressure monitor.  A white hospital blanket covered my navy suit, and my stupid clunky brown shoes stuck out like I was the Wicked Witch of the East under Dorothy’s house.  Great.

That day, I fully accepted the high likelihood that my mother had cancer, in the span of about twenty minutes, and that things would never be the same.  Sure, it’s nice to think “anything can happen” and “let’s wait and see”, but I don’t have that in me.  I don’t exactly know how, but I knew.  And instead of taking it in small incremental doses, I swallowed it whole, like a snake eating an ostrich egg.  Which, by the way, the human psyche is not equipped for — hence the passing out.  From this vantage point, denial looks like a luxurious psychological outpost somewhere near Tahiti.  I was currently camping in Full Reality, near the South Pole.

Like many others, when reality is staring me in the face, I turn to food.  Is it the healthiest habit in the world?  Of course not.  Does it work?  Absolutely.

Food is comforting and predictable.  Food doesn’t hand out diagnoses, or prognoses, or any other form of bad news.  Food is food.  That is all.

The best comfort food demands my full attention, so as to completely distract me.  All five senses are employed: it looks good, it sounds good, it smells good, it tastes good, it feels good.  It IS good.  And for the short while that I’m cooking it, and eating it, I’m good, too.  It’s an ephemeral substitute for actual denial, and I’ll take it.

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My favorite comfort food of all time requires almost a full hour of my attention at the stove, and it’s worth every single second.  It’s warm, and toothsome, and bursting with umami.  I could quite possibly eat it every day.

I first had barley “risotto” with roasted vegetables at Farrago, a great restaurant in mid-town Houston.  In a rare move, I knew I had to try and replicate it.  Amazingly, Joy of Cooking had a recipe for the risotto, and I figured out the rest on my own.  I top mine with roasted or sauteed vegetables — any mixture will do, but a medley of bell peppers always seems to be involved — and generous sprinkle of canned french fried onions for crunch.  You know, the kind that people use on green bean casserole… it may sound strange, but it totally works.

BARLEY AND MUSHROOM “RISOTTO”

4 to 6 tablespoons butter
1 1/3 cups finely chopped onion
8 oz shiitake mushrooms, stems removed and caps diced
1 cup pearl barley
2/3 cup dry white wine
1 tablespoon mashed or finely minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt (omit if using Parmesan cheese)
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
6 cups chicken stock
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese (optional)

Warm (but do not simmer) the chicken stock in a saucepan over low heat. Heat the butter in a large deep skillet until the foam subsides. Add the onion and cook, stirring, until tender but not brown (about 7 minutes). Stir in the mushrooms and cook until softened. Reduce the heat to medium-low; add the barley and stir until glazed with butter. Add the wine, garlic, salt (if not using Parmesan), and pepper and cook, stirring, until the liquid is absorbed.

Stir two cups of the chicken stock into the barley. Simmer slowly, stirring occasionally, until the stock is almost absorbed. Add the remaining stock 1/2 cup at a time, allowing each addition to be absorbed before adding the next and stirring often. The barley needs 45 to 60 minutes’ cooking to become tender. If you run low on stock while the barley is still very underdone, reduce the heat. If you do run out of stock, finish cooking with hot water.

This risotto can be made up to four days ahead. Let cool completely, then cover and refrigerate. Reheat in a skillet over low heat, adding a little water and stirring frequently.

Serves 4 as a main dish and 8 as a side dish.

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For Halloween: Chili, Two Ways

Oct 28

Posted by Laura in Food of Love | 11 Comments

The real deal.

If I haven’t mentioned it before, I grew up in rural Texas, near the coast.  When I say rural, I mean that it was a 15-minute drive to town, and by “town”, I mean a small bedroom community of 1500 people.  There was literally one blinking stop light there.  Now I think there might be two.

I envied the kids that lived in town, because they had a social life.  They could ride their bikes to each other houses, scratch together a baseball game, or gaggle up and cause generic mayhem.  Not us.  The only kids my brother and I could visit without the benefit of motorized transportation were our three cousins, who lived a quarter of a mile down the road.  We were experts at snaking our way through the barbed wire fence that bordered the pasture between us — we’d trod along amongst the cows, greeting them by name, petting the tame ones and dodging the “mean mamas”.

(Seeing as how only one of those three cousins was a girl, it’s no wonder that Leah and I wound up being the best of friends.  But even if she hadn’t been my one and only option, she’d still be my one and only Leah.  Awwwww.)

Anyway, when you live in the sticks, Halloween just isn’t all that exciting.  Sure, we donned costumes and trick-or-treated, but it’s not the same when a) there are only about five houses within a reasonable radius, and b) you have to be driven between the stops.  The allure was diminished, to say the least — yet another topic upon which those wimpy town kids (like Matt) had the upper hand.

So between the dimished allure and the lack of a major corresponding religious feast, it’s no wonder that I don’t have any long-standing rituals for Halloween.  But I do love traditions, and now that I live in the suburbs and have a kiddo, it’s high time I adopted some.

Enter Ryan and Shana, aka The Neighborly Victims, who graciously invited us to participate in their Halloween tradition.  Growing up, Ryan’s family always had chili for dinner on Halloween, which is perfect: it’s fall-ish, can be made ahead of time, and is easy to serve from the stove during an evening of hither and thither and yon.  For dessert, they always had caramel apples.  How autumnal can you get?!  I was sold.

Shana and I agreed that they’d make the apples and we’d bring the chili.  Which made me immediately realize that I still hadn’t really found a good authentic chili recipe.  For a native Texan home cook, this is practically a crime.

I poked around in my usual cookbooks, finding little.  And then I remembered a cookbook my mother had given me years ago: a rare coffee-table sized book called Texas the Beautiful.  It was released in 1986, no doubt to commemorate the Lone Star State’s sesquicentennial, which, as you may recall, was a big honkin’ deal.  In it, I found a truly authentic chili recipe: no onions, no beans, no tomatoes.

For those of you that have just drawn a weapon, please allow me to explain.  Chili’s technical name is chili con carne, which translates to “chili with meat”.  That’s basically it: chili (in the form of actual chiles, chili powder, or both) and meat.  Along the way, someone added chopped onion as a garnish (complementary flavor, nice color contrast), and someone else had the brilliant idea to serve beans on the side (presumably to give at least the illusion of a rounded meal).  The next thing you know, people started adding a farraginous assortment of other ingredients: tomatoes, corn, cheese, chocolate… the list goes on.

And I’m cool with that.  So much so, in fact, that my favorite chili is actually a vegetarian one.  (Again, I’m going to have to ask you to put the gun away.  Please?)

I’m reminded of a conversation that Matt and I had over the summer.  I’d made lemonade (because I had a bunch of leftover lemons, and that’s what we optimists do), and he was sampling it.  When I asked how he liked it, he said that it was okay, but he really preferred “the normal stuff.”  Which is…?, I asked.  You know, the pink powder in the can, or whatever.

Do I need to tell you that I was aghast?  Okay then: I was aghast.  I don’t necessarily have anything against pink powder in a can, but for the sake of all that is holy and righteous, let’s not call it “the normal stuff”!   Where’s my gun?

Before my blood pressure elevates any further, I’ll get back to chili.  I thought that the “Real Texas Chili” from mom’s cookbook was pretty tasty, but being a flexitarian, I’m at a bit of a disadvantage when evaluating a dish that’s 90% meat.  Thankfully, Andy, a true chili-head, dropped by just in time.   And you know what?  He said it’s the best he’s had in 30 years.  Whoda thunkit?

So whether you get a hankering for chili over Halloween weekend, or you want to celebrate the Rangers’ appearance in the Series with a dish born in the Lone Star State, I’m giving you the bookends on the spectrum of possibilities.  You can thank me later.

Boo! and Go Rangers!

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Obviously, one of the keys to making good chili is finding a chili powder you like.  There are hundreds of options, and everyone has their preference — so if you haven’t already, flirt with a few before you head to the altar with one.

REAL TEXAS CHILI
(Adapted from Texas The Beautiful Cookbook)

3 pounds chuck or round steak
6 ounces beef suet (!), or hard beef fat (from your butcher)
3-4 cloves garlic, crushed through a press
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
4-6 tablespoons chili powder*
8 tablespoons masa harina (more for additional thickening, if necessary)
6 cups hot water
2 tablespoons vinegar (I used plain white)
2 teaspoons or 2 cubes beef bouillon (I used Knorr cubes)
Dried red chiles, chopped or crushed (optional, use sparingly)**

Remove gristle and most of the fat from the meat, cut into 1/2-inch cubes. Place suet or hard beef fat in a large skillet or heavy saucepan and render it. Discard the suet residue or rendered pieces of fat.

Saute meat in the hot fat until lightly browned. Add garlic, salt, pepper, and chili powder. Mix well and allow seasonings to permeate meat for a few minutes.

Sprinkle in masa harina and mix thoroughly. Add hot water, vinegar, bouillon and chiles. Lower heat, cover, and simmer until the meat is very tender. In fact, some of the meat should virtually dissolve into the chili. If the chili becomes dry while cooking, add a little water from time to time. Correct the seasonings, skim off some or all of the fat from the surface. Serves 6-8 chili-heads!

*I used 4 Tbsp of Central Market’s San Antonio chili powder and 1 Tbsp of McCormick’s chipotle chile powder, to ramp up the smoke factor.

**I used half of a large dried red pasilla, chopped, just to see what would happen.

FALSE ALARM VEGETABLE CHILI
(Found on marthastewart.com years ago.)

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 red bell pepper, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 large carrot , chopped medium
1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 pound dried lentils, rinsed
1/3 cup tomato paste
1 (15 oz) can red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 (15 oz) can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1 (28 oz) can stewed tomatoes
1/3 cup chili powder
4 teaspoons ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon crushed red-pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

In a large soup pot, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onion, green and red peppers, carrot, jalapeño pepper, and garlic. Cook until the vegetables soften, about 5 minutes. Stir in 7 cups water, lentils, tomato paste, kidney beans, and pinto beans. Stir to blend, adding stewed tomatoes, chili powder, cumin, and crushed red-pepper flakes.

Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover and simmer until lentils are tender, about 45 minutes. If the chili starts to dry out, add hot water as needed. Season with salt and pepper, and serve immediately. Serves 10 open-minded, artery-loving types.

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Good, Fast, and Cheap: Usually, You Pick Two

Sep 29

Posted by Laura in Food of Love | 7 Comments

I ate it so fast, you just get a shot of the leftovers.

That’s right, I’m referencing the project triangle on a food blog.  Is there an end to my nerd-ness?  If so, I haven’t found it.

Usually, the triangle is used to give people a big ol’ reality check on their expectations.  Everybody wants a project that’s good, fast, and cheap, but in reality, you can only pick two.  The third will almost always interfere with one of the others.

Like many concepts in life, this also relates to food.  And since that’s kinda sorta the whole point of this blog, I thought we could talk about it.  Let’s see…

Good and Cheap = beans from scratch, homemade pastries

Good and Fast = seared ribeye, redfish on the half-shell

Cheap and Fast = McDonald’s

Rare indeed is the recipe that hits all three points, so when I find one, I keep it.  Foh-evah.  Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Couscous Burritos.

Now, I realize that you are very likely thinking one of two things.  Either 1) What the heck is couscous?,  or 2) Pasta wrapped in a tortilla?  I was in the second camp, but now I’m a believer.

It’s no coincidence that a vegetarian recipe breaks the triangle, because meat is expensive and generally takes the longest to cook.  And of course the whole idea depends on exactly what you consider ‘good’… I mean, if McDonald’s scratches your itch, then you probably stopped reading a couple of paragraphs ago.  You’ve found your utopia.  Well, wait… maybe ‘good’ should also require non-lethal status.  Hmmmm.

My friend Joy gave me this recipe, to pass along to Sergio as bachelor food (if you can chop and you can boil water, you can make these).  I wonder how long it will take her to find this post?  We’ll know because she’ll add comments with her tips and tricks, like where to find couscous in the grocery store… you will, won’t you, Joy?

In the meantime, do you agree with me?  Do we usually have to compromise between good, fast, and cheap in the food world?  Got a triangle recipe to share?

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Couscous Burritos
Adapted from Better Homes & Gardens’ Vegetarian Cooking

4 8-inch flavored or plain flour tortillas
1/2 cup vegetable broth or chicken broth
2 tablespoons canned diced green chile peppers
1/8 teaspoon ground turmeric
Dash black pepper
1/3 cup quick-cooking couscous
2 tablespoons sliced green onion
1/2 cup chopped tomato
1/3 cup chopped green bell pepper
1/4 cup finely shredded reduced-fat Mexican-blend cheese
Bottled salsa (optional)
Sour cream (optional)
Guacamole or avocado (optional)
Grilled shrimp or chicken (optional, but if you opt-in… adios, triangle!)

Stack tortillas and wrap in foil. Bake in a 350°F oven about 10 minutes or until heated through. (Or, stack tortillas and wrap in microwave-safe paper towels. Microwave on high about 30 seconds.)

Meanwhile, in a small saucepan combine the broth, green chile peppers, turmeric, and black pepper. Bring to a boil. Remove from heat; stir in couscous and green onion. Let stand, covered, for 5 minutes. Fluff couscous mixture with a fork. Stir in tomato and sweet pepper.
To assemble each burrito, spoon about 1/3 cup of the couscous mixture onto a tortilla just below center. Top with 2 tablespoons of the cheese and the optional ingredients, if using; roll up tortilla.

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Kickin’ It Up a Notch

Sep 7

Posted by Laura in Food of Love | 6 Comments

What do red beans and rice have to do with school supplies? Read on...

When I was a little kid, school didn’t start until today – the Tuesday after Labor Day.  In fact, I still associate this particular holiday with buying new clothes and having my picture taken with my brother by the door, lunchboxes in hand. Now that I’m older, this is the time of year when I get a little hyper about organizing and planning, and I go a little overboard buying office supplies – calendars, binders with those handy divider tab thingys, and gel pens in every color.

Obviously this fetish started with school supplies. Five-subject notebooks with pristinely lined, gleaming white pages. A fresh box of 64 crayons – stadium seating, ends still perfectly chiseled, labels not yet peeled back, and a fancy sharpener built into the box. A handful of pencils made of real wood, so that you could occasionally walk to the sharpener and stretch your legs. And remember Trapper Keepers?! All those closures, and pockets, and velcro… great, now I’m going to have to suppress the urge to scour eBay and find a vintage one.

But you know what? It’s not really about the supplies.  It’s about the promise of a fresh start, isn’t it? A new school year means a new routine. New schedule, new teachers, new books about new subjects. Those notebooks haven’t yet been trampled, the pencils are not yet impaled into ceiling tiles, the crayons are not yet pathetic naked nubs of their former glorious selves. Ever having been grounded for a bad report card is a distant memory.

The beauty of summer turning to fall is that even if you’re not a kid, there’s still a buzz of change in the air. There’s more traffic on the roads, and we re-jigger our normal routes to go back to dodging school zones. Everyone’s back in the office, which means that – holy smokes! – it’s September, for crying out loud, and if I’m going finish out my year strong, I’d better get busy.

And that’s what I’m writing to tell you today. It’s time to get busy. The lazy summer is over, and I don’t care what your religious status is, it’s time for the ol’ Protestant work ethic to kick in.

New Year’s gets all the hype about buckling down and improving ourselves, but Labor Day is where it’s at. Think of it this way: you’ve got about twelve weeks until it’s time for holiday cocktail party banter. Now, just think of everything you could accomplish in those twelve weeks. You could lose twelve pounds. You could have twelve weeks of piano lessons under your belt. You could be twelve weeks into that giant project you keep putting off – or better yet, you could have blown through those twelve small projects you’ve been putting off. You could do some serious fundraising for a worthy cause in twelve weeks.  It’s so very cliche, but so very true: in twelve weeks, you could make a difference.

And besides the inherent worth of doing something worth doing, how great would it be to have a juicy update at the Thanksgiving dinner table? (“Oh, by the way, I’m running a marathon next month.  Could you please pass the peas?“)

You decide.  Are you tired of phoning it in and ready to shake things up a bit?  Are you ready to make a promise to yourself, and keep it?  Who knows what could happen?

Read the rest of this entry »

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Bon Appétit Challenge: March Cook-Along

Mar 16

Posted by Laura in 2010 Bon Appétit Covers | 7 Comments

I’m thrilled to report that frequent commenter Lisbeth also made the eggplant parmesan rolls, and filed this report from Stockholm:

Hi Laura,

So, as I wrote you, I made the Eggplant (‘aubergine’ over here) dish last weekend. Apart from substituting Swiss chard for spinach (as I didn’t find the former), I pretty much followed the BA-recipe with regards to both ingredients and procedures.

While preparing it, my first thought was that it was really time-consuming and I did wonder why salting the eggplants should be necessary. I don’t usually do this when using eggplants in other dishes and don’t find bitterness or water (studying the topic afterwards – in Claudia Roden’s Middle East Cookbook – this was given as the reason. Roden doesn’t do it herself either) to be a big problem; particularly not when they are broiled afterwards. Anyway, rolling the broiled eggplant slices proved to be a lot easier that I had anticipated so that was nice.

Since we were off to the movies, I didn’t quite wait for the mozzarella to brown and since I had forgotten to save some parmesan for sprinkling, this step was also left out.

Ooh, yes, I also didn’t oil the glass baking tray since I found this rather pointless when filling the tray with a tomato sauce…

However, even if the eggplant dish was thought as a sidedish to something else, we enjoyed it with a rather simple salad and has brought left-overs for lunch this following week.

Liked:

- Rolling eggplants is a great twist to my usual layered aubergine dish and this is a great way to serve them for a big dinner party where you would want your guests to have a couple of rolls as opposted to a big slop served from a layered dish.

- I really like the texture of the filling and found it very easy to compile (despite my rather ‘rustic’ cut slices of eggplant).

- I guess I should add that tomato sauce and eggplant in general is a very good mix and therefore I really liked the overall taste and texture of this dish – but this flavour aspect is of course not unique for this dish.

Disliked:

- WAY to much cheese – and I even forgot the last sprinkle of parmesan! Also I didn’t find the mozzarella to make much of a difference to neither texture or taste.

- I had also expected that I would find the addition of mint to be a positive note but actually I think so many other herbs (fresh thyme; basil; oregano or marjoram) would accent the dish better.

Different next time:

- I wouldn’t go through the step of salting the eggplants before broiling.

- I would add some more vegetables such as chopped onions, zucchini, or more swiss chard/spinach to the tomate sauce layer below the rolled eggplants.

- Leave out the mint and substitute with another green leafy herb.

- Leave out the mozzarella and possibly sprinkle with bread crumbs instead.

So all in all, I liked the dish and will likely make it again but will also be making some changes to it.

Best regards from Stockholm,

Lisbeth

 

How fantastic is this, folks?  If nothing else, I’m going to start referring to eggplant as “aubergine” from now on.  “Eggplant” seems so common and clunky now.  “Aubergine” is clearly much more sophisticated.

I have heard rumblings about a certain someone else having also made the dish… if I receive any additional reports (hint, hint), they will certainly be posted.

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Bon Appétit Challenge: Eggplant Parmesan Rolls

Mar 15

Posted by Laura in 2010 Bon Appétit Covers, Cover Recipe Results | 2 Comments

It’s no secret that I wasn’t all that jazzed about the March cover, Eggplant Parmesan Rolls with Swiss Chard and Fresh Mint.  In fact, this is one of the few times that (in the old, pre-resolution days) I would have blown off the cover recipe and not even filed it one of the three-ring binders where good intentions die. 

I’ve been spending some time thinking about why, because my flexitarian status alone should have elevated my excitement level.  I’ve got nothing personal against eggplant parmesan, so what gives?

The truth is, I’ve come to expect certain things from a Bon Appétit cover recipe.  It will either challenge my skills and teach me a new technique, OR it has potential to be best in class (January’s cover had a shot at being the best spaghetti and meatballs ever), OR it’s a show-stopper (February’s grilled cheese and short rib sandwich made me do a double take).  For me, March’s cover didn’t do any of these. 

All that being said, I must admit that I had fun making this dish.  And you know what?  It was very well received by my dinner guests, and I really liked it, too.  I’ll have the Eggplant parmesan rolls with a side of crow, please…

Okay, now for the breakdown.  Three things jumped out at me about the recipe. 

One, I’d be salting slices of eggplant, which I’d heard about but never done before.  Kinda cool in a Bill Nye the Science Guy kind of way.  You know, osmosis and all that.

Two, it called for a can of tomato sauce.  That’s it.  No seperate recipe for the homemade stuff, with assurances that I could double the batch and use it for baked ziti or some such.  Nope, just a can-o-sauce.  Not organic, not reduced sodium.  Heck, not even Marzanos.  I wasn’t sure whether to sing hallelujah’s or wag my finger at the obvious decline of my favorite food periodical…

Three, I was going to be squeezing water out of cooked greens - swiss chard, in this case.  Lord have mercy, I thought I’d gotten out of that tedious business by foreswearing any recipe that calls for it.  Between that and drying out the eggplant slices, the list of ingredients should have mentioned that you’ll need a couple rolls of the Quicker Picker Upper to get the job done.

For this cover recipe, I knew I needed guests involved, because Matt just isn’t a eggplant/swiss chard/mint kind of guy.  In fact, the mint alone told me that I’d better call for backup.  In his world, mint belongs in chewing gum, on a dessert plate as garnish, and in ice cream (and even that’s stretching it).  So I called up my dad and my in-law’s, and as luck would have it, all three were available and up for recipe testing.  To hedge my bets, I picked up some chicken breasts to marinate and grill.  And since we were grilling, I threw some asparagus on, too.  Sourdough bread rounded out the menu.  Not bad for a Sunday dinner, I’d say – even if the eggplant bombed.

Which it didn’t.  I sliced the eggplant with a mandoline, which made life tons easier (thanks, Ryan and Shana!).  Then, only having one colander of any size, I decided to lay the salt-packed slices on a rack set over a rimmed baking sheet, to catch the moisture.  And man, was there moisture!  After an hour, I measured 2/3 cup of water that dripped out of those eggplant slices – I thought maybe I’d get a three or four tablespoons.  Clearly that hour of prep time served a purpose.  Alton Brown would be proud. 

Contrary to my fears, no one found the mint revolting or misplaced – in fact, no one really noticed before I mentioned it.  It was just the right amount to brighten the flavor and perk up the dish.

All in all, I must say, it was a hit.  Everyone had some, and everyone liked it.  Most said they’d have had it as a main entree, in lieu of meat.  Matt said he liked it, but wouldn’t request it – and considering that I expected him to try a bite and reject it outright, that’s a huge win.  Dad enjoyed it and said it tasted like lasagna – but added that for all the trouble, you might was well actually make lasagna.  Couldn’t have said it better myself, Pop.

I still say it’s not cover-worthy, but if you make this, don’t feel compelled to grill chicken just in case.  It’s tasty enough to carry a menu on it’s own.

In the end, I’m giving it a measly B.  I probably won’t make it again, because between the slicing and the salting and the patting and broiling and the squeezing, it’s just not worth it.  But it made my dinner guests happy, which makes me happy. 

Thanks for proving me wrong, Bon Appétit!  Now, how about some spring-time dessert for April?  I know you’ll be doing the requisite Easter and Passover menus, but how about some rhubarb pie?  Or berry cobbler?  I’m crossing my fingers…

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Bon Appétit Challenge: A Tale of Two Covers

Feb 21

Posted by Laura in 2010 Bon Appétit Covers, Cover Announcements | 13 Comments

Barbara, I was just joshin’ about you taking bribes from my husband.  You didn’t have to haul off and put the most anti-Matt dish you could find on the cover.  Really, you didn’t.

I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt for choosing this particular dish.  But I gotta tell ya, it’s not the sexiest cover ever.  To the extent that the cover photo is intended to sell magazines, Eggplant Parmesan Rolls with Swiss Chard and Fresh Mint would not catch my eye at the newsstand. 

But I get it: we’re in a recession and times are tough.  People are spending less on food, and they’re cooking more at home instead of going out.  So a low-cost one-dish dinner has a certain timeliness and appeal, not to mention the fact that it’s meatless and therefore Lent-friendly. 

But could it be any more different than last month’s cover?  Those sandwiches stop you dead in your tracks and pick up the issue, and then it takes about five seconds to decide that you really must make it, just to see if it’s half as good as that photo.  It looks like something you’d blow your diet for.  Eggplant Rolls, not so much. 

I sent the recipe link to my good friend (and frequent commenter) Andy, who replied, “seems like it going to require a lot of effort and not really be worth it in the end.”  I hope he’s wrong, but I wouldn’t bet against him.

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