Yesterday we spent much of the day “feathering our nest,” as my mom would call it. Hanging up pictures and other things that had been put on the back burner while I finished finals and Matt was busy at work. We also watched Knocked Up (verdict: not nearly as funny as Superbad, though very realistic in how many doctors react to a patient who wants to be an active participant in her own labor) and I improvised some lentil soup:
What’s-in-the-Fridge Lentil Soup
1 T butter 3-5 stalks of celery, chopped 3 medium carrots, chopped 1-1/2 T sage, fresh or dried 2 tsp thyme 5 cups water 1 T salt 1 can (14.5oz?) diced tomatoes 1 cup brown lentils 1-2 T balsamic vinegar
1. Saute celery in butter until soft. Add sage and thyme. 2. Add water, carrots, tomatoes, salt, and lentils. Simmer until lentils are soft, about 30 min. 3. Blend the soup in batches until desired consistency. 4. Add vinegar (and salt/pepper if desired) to taste.
Serve with parmesan cheese and crunched-up crackers.
Today was my first day of orientation at my new job. It was just basic hospital-wide orientation, lots of speakers to listen to and videos to watch, but so far, so good.
Half in the bag on mulled wine, we decided to make our own Thin Mints. A few notes on the recipe: as noted in multiple comments on the original site, the recipe as given seems to turn out very dry. (Admission: I used regular butter, powdered sugar, cocoa, and peppermint, mostly bulk from Aldi’s, and I can’t say I think it would make a difference to go the pricey/organic route on these.) Making half a batch as I was, I cut the flour from 3/4 of a cup to 1/2. (Making a full batch, 1 cup would probably be plenty.) Second, the cocoa flavor does wind up being a tad strong, so I made it a spare 1/2 cup of cocoa and a generous 1/2 cup of powdered sugar. I also ended up baking the cookies closer to 12 minutes and they were still just a little soft. As the author does, I improvised a double-boiler for melting the chocolate, using a nonstick pan on top of a simmering pot of water.
Ah, the chocolate: one of our favorite finds at Trader Joe’s today was the broken hunks of Ghiradelli chocolate–about a half-pound hunk of pure semisweet for just over a buck. We got one for eating and two for cooking, so one of those was what we melted for dipping. We didn’t have any trouble with the texture, so no need to add cream or oil as some others apparently did. The peppermint, I would recommend titrating by taste.
We also don’t have cookie cutters, so we cut them out with shotglasses per yet another suggestion. It worked like a charm. Absolutely the perfect size!
Here are the chocolate cookies just out of the oven: The melting chocolate: And the finished product: Start to finish, just under an hour. They were fun and really quite easy; aside from making the dough in the KitchenAid, which I wouldn’t have had to, no special equipment required whatsoever. Also, besides the peppermint extract, which I think most people have on hand anyway, it was pretty much all stuff that we already had in the kitchen.
My Torts final went pretty well yesterday, I think. We won’t know for sure until February (!), but I felt like I had ample time and discussed it afterward with a friend who came up with similar results on hers. Torts is by far my favorite class, and I think for that and other reasons it’s both objectively and subjectively the easiest class I have. We also had a midterm in that class and so we somewhat knew what to expect. Which means: it’s only an uphill climb from here! The main reason I was dreading this test was because getting it over with means there are no more acceptable reasons for putting off studying for my least favorite two classes, Contracts and Civil Procedure. Huge volumes of very dry and particular rules that should probably be committed to memory, which is probably what I should be doing right now. Ugh.
Otherwise, not much has been going on around here. Work is going really well for Matt, and I’m looking forward to starting orientation at the hospital on the 17th. I’m hoping to hear about Georgetown by the end of December. We’re also getting VERY excited about going home (I always feel disloyal when I say that, because really, I do feel like here is home too) to see our families in a couple of weeks. We haven’t started our Christmas shopping yet, but because our families are relatively small and Christmas is a relatively simple affair at both households, we’re not getting too worried. I know I should get finals behind me first. We’ve talked about how we hope that even if we had a bigger place or (gasp) a bigger family, we’d like to keep things such as shopping and decorating about on par with where they’re at now. Easier said than done, I know, but we are blessed with families who try to keep things in perspective with reasonable expectations and a general lack of materialism, and I think that sets a good example. Now let’s just hope the weather cooperates so that we can get back to the Midwest for Christmas.
On the cooking front, we made stir-fry last night, which has become an old standby favorite. I’m thinking about making Gourmet Magazine’s Nacho Macaroni and Cheese (sounds gourmet, huh?) for dinner. Cold weather seems to give us just the excuse we’re always looking for to whip up homey (read: cheesy) comfort foods. Not that we refrain in the summertime.
On a related note, we keep hoping to get in a routine of some kind of regular physical activity, whether that’s running or walking or bike riding, although unfortunately it isn’t the greatest weather for it. Not that ANY weather is a compelling substitute for lounging in bed until 8am, which is what we’ve been doing lately!
Matt has been going through some stressful weeks at work as they prepare for their weeklong out-of-town conference, so this morning he got up and went in to work about an hour early to try to get a jump on the workday. I got up too, in a show of solidarity, which is how we like to do it when we can, and we actually enjoyed a nice morning together. Starting our relationship with schedules 180 degrees apart has given us a deep appreciation for the ability to spend these times together, and we’re thankful for that.
Once I saw him off, I dialed into what I still think of as “work,” the hospital back in Iowa, and chatted with a few long-lost friends, which was lovely. We’re beginning to formulate plans with friends for over the holidays, which will include approximately 3 days in each Iowa and Wisconsin, and are really looking forward to the trip. Time will be tight but it should be lots of fun.
Last night, in homage to the aforementioned stress-filled workday which didn’t end until around 7pm, we went out to the Old Siam, which is rapidly becoming one of our favorite places to eat. It’s nice to have found a place nearby that’s cozy and nice, but not fancy; quick with the food (and oh, how we love Thai food); and the home an excellent mojito, the likes of which I haven’t had since we moved away from the Atlas. Then we came home, climbed in bed (the only warm place in the house since we’ve resisted turning on our heat up to this point, preferring to rely on sweaters and the frequent workouts we give the stove and the oven), and put a Six Feet Under DVD on the MacBook. Whether this technically violates our self-imposed year of no television depends on how much of a purist you are, I guess, but it made for a snuggly evening in followed by an early night to sleep, which was what we both needed.
Two nights ago we finally had the pumpkinfest we’d been waiting for. We made the following (picture ours):
My Best Pumpkin Soup
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil 1 medium Onion, chopped 2 cloves Garlic, minced 1-1/2 teaspoons Garam Masala 1/2 teaspoon Black Pepper 1-1/2 teaspoons Ginger, grated 1 can light Coconut Milk 2 cups Pumpkin, pureed Salt, to taste 1–2 cups Water or Vegetable Stock 1 Lime, juiced
Heat olive oil in deep pan over medium heat. Add chopped onion and sauté until soft and translucent. Add the garlic and sauté for 1 minute. Add the garam masala, black pepper and ginger, and sauté 1 more minute. Add the coconut milk and pumpkin, and stir to mix thoroughly. Place mixture in blender, and puree until creamy. Pour soup back into rinsed deep pan or soup pot. Cook for 15 minutes, adding salt to taste. If needing to be thinned, add a little water or vegetable stock to desired consistency. Before serving, mix in the juice of one lime.
We didn’t actually do the lime juice at the end, because we forgot, and we bumped up all the spices because that’s just what we do. We also topped it with toasted pumpkin seeds, like croutons. We both really enjoyed it. We were surprised that it didn’t come out…orange-r, because the pumpkin puree was certainly vivid enough.
For the broth, we used a batch of ginger stock that we made out of the peelings of two pounds of ginger that Matt convinced me would be much more economical to process ourselves in the Cuisinart, instead of buying fresh ginger puree like we usually do. He was right; at about $2.39 for four ounces, the ginger wasn’t prohibitively expensive, especially since most recipes don’t take much; but the raw ginger was $1.28 a pound, and out of two pounds, we got easily at least eight times, maybe ten times, as much as we would have in the jar. Plus it made the apartment smell wonderfully gingery for an evening. Now have enough fresh ginger puree to last us a long, long time; not to mention the stock, which is perfect for times like this!
The other thing we made was this pumpkin pie (notable because it uses honey and cream/milk, or in our case half-and-half, instead of sugar and evaporated milk; we appreciated the difference) with this crust (because I’m not a huge fan of traditional piecrusts). It turned out delicious, but, since we had no pie pan, we just baked it in a regular square glass pan and in order to get the filling in the middle cooked, we had to make the sacrifice of a rather toasty crust. Bummer. However, we got to experience the joys of make a crumb crust in the Cuisinart (like falling off a log, as opposed to the old “cutting butter into the flour/crumbs” method that I have NEVER gotten the hang of!). And our big discovery of the evening was after we used the spice grinder (read: old coffee grinder) to grind up some cloves to add to the filling (there weren’t any in the recipe but we thought there ought to be) we decided to whip up some impromptu powdered sugar for our whipping cream in there too. So we threw some Sucanat on top of the remnant clove powder (because we were too lazy to clean it, and also had an inkling it just might be good) and whipped that into the heavy cream and hot damn, ended up with the most deliciously subtly clove-y whipped cream to plop on top of the pie.
Today, I’m working hard to drum up the motivation to study that has been MIA for, oh, weeks now. As my mom would say, it’s the end of the grading period, no time to let down, and I know that. I know that my entrance into midwifery school likely hinges largely on the kinds of grades I get at the end of this semester, which is no less pressure (and in fact a far more important one, to me) than that to “grade onto” law review. So. It’s 7:30, I’ve blogged, I’ve had a cup of coffee, and now it’s time to hit the books.
Tonight, because the busy season of music accreditation does not pause to trick-or-treat, we got home kind of late, about 7:30. So we quickly heated up the last of the potato soup and chucked some grilled-cheese sandwiches on the stove. I had been enticed by the farmer’s market which sets up shop near my metro stop on Wednesday, and had bought some apples and also a couple of bunches of basil. I was worried this morning because I heard on the radio we’d had a frost, which usually spells the end of the basil, but the lady at the farmer’s market apparently grows hers in a greenhouse. So we whipped up a teeny impromptu batch for our sandwiches and sliced up a tomato we needed to use up, and that was that.
Then we tried to run, but our full bellies slowed us down to a walk before very long. Our destination? CVS, where we needed to fill a prescription and also had some coupons to burn. Right now they’re offering Soy Joy bars for a dollar apiece, plus you get $4 back in CVS Extra Bucks (essentially like coupons for money off future purchases) when you buy four of them. So they’re essentially free, which is sweet enough, but I also had a coupon for $2 off of 5, $1 off of four, and one for buy one get one free. So we actually made money on those. I also had two printed coupons which came on my register receipt from the last time we went to CVS, which were each $2.50 off of any CVS-brand purchase. There’s a CVS brand of shampoo I really like, and lo and behold, we got there and it was on sale 2 bottles for $5…so those were free as well! I had one more coupon, a $2 off of any purchase over $10 (which they determine BEFORE they take off coupons, but either way, I still had a pesky $20 copay on the prescription so I would have qualified anyway), which we used to buy some envelopes. With our register receipt printed out not only our $4 in Extra Bucks, but also another $2.50 off CVS-brand purchase coupon. So essentially, we walked away with two bottles of free shampoo, five free Soy Joy bars, a box of free envelopes, and either $6.50 worth of coupons, or a $20 prescription for $13.50, however you like to look at it. CVS shopping and coupon clipping can both be pretty addictive this way and have earned us a ton of free things, like toothpaste and tampons, neither of which is anything we anticipate eliminating our need for anytime soon! For a great introduction to the types of great deals that can be had, check out this site which pretty much spells it out for you.
Other than that, Matt has been busy working early and late and everything in between as he and his colleagues get ready for their annual meeting in Salt Lake City in just two weeks. I am super sad (OK, understatement!) to see him go, but excited for the kinds of opportunities he’ll have there and happy he’s found work and people he likes so much. Cushioning the blow will be a visit from the lovely Holly, as well as the invitation to crash with my favorite/only law school buddy during the other few days. It will come at what is essentially crunch time for us to be studying for finals, and so that will be a convenient motivator.
Speaking of school, it’s going fine. Today I attended a discussion with the chief prosecutor for the US Attorney’s Office of DC’s division of domestic violence and sex crimes, which was fascinating. She’s a GW alum and was really inspiring. I’m trying to give myself every opportunity to fall in love with law before I leave, so that I don’t do anything I’ll regret. However, more than anything, I was excited to meet somebody who’s so passionate about doing something that I think is so essential. Also, I asked her a question about whether she believed that prosecuting sexual assault was as compulsory as prosecuting domestic violence (being as one has a tendency to be much more habitual than the other; as a sexual assault advocate, you typically don’t try to convince people to prosecute because the process is so traumatic and the outcome is so uncertain. With domestic violence, she asserted, it’s been found that criminal prosecution is a really important step in breaking the cycle of violence, even if it’s not something that the victim thinks is desirable). I also mentioned that given our own experience with the police, which was that they tend to blame victims of crime and have zero interest in trying to collect evidence, had really appalled and disillusioned me. Her answer was that in the case of sexual assault, they’re required to call in specially trained detectives in addition to the sexual assault response team, and it warmed my heart because she said “We also turn them over to specially trained nurses, who do a wonderful job.” It reaffirmed my feeling that there is an important place for me in that puzzle.
On that note, my hope is to complete training to become a sexual assault nurse examiner (SANE) during my hiatus from school. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for awhile; during the last hospital call I attended as a rape crisis advocate in Iowa City, the SANE was a nurse I’d worked with before and she said “Why are you doing that instead of this?” Well, at that point the answer was because I was working full-time and didn’t have time to complete the training…in addition to the fact that, despite pleas from the current SANE’s that they were overworked and could use all the help that they could get, the director of the Iowa SANE program decided that 1.5 years of experience as an OB nurse just wasn’t close enough to the 2 years of experience she really preferred. Out here, I think they’ll take what they can get.
I’m feeling really excited about the idea of having some flexibility in my schedule between December and August. I’ve talked to the hospital about working PRN (basically, on an hourly basis without benefits but for a higher hourly wage) like I’m doing now, but in labor and delivery instead of mother-baby and hopefully for 3-4 days a week. They have indicated that this shouldn’t be a problem. I’m a little bit nervous because I’m going to have to scrub for C-sections, which I never had to do at Iowa, but which kind of goes with the territory. I’m not a terribly physically coordinated person to begin with, the training is going to be painfully brief, and the reason that nobody likes to scrub is that it makes you a very convenient whipping post for the doctors when the surgery isn’t going well. So not only do you have a baby or a mother in some kind of immediate physical distress, you have somebody screaming that it’s your fault because you’re not getting the instruments out fast enough or because you don’t know how to read their minds and know that what they said isn’t actually what they meant. Plus, my sterile technique completely sucks. But. There are going to be challenges in any field, and this is one of them.
Anyway, the flexibility. Like I mentioned, I’m hoping to get SANE certified and also hoping to finish training to staff the online crisis hotline for RAINN. The training was supposed to be this weekend, but was canceled due to small class size. The next one will be in January. I’ve always loved volunteer work and the opportunity to dabble in a diverse array of activities, and I’m finding that nursing (at least, not-quite-full-time nursing like I’ll be doing in the coming months) is more amenable to that than a lot of paths. I’m also looking forward to the opportunity to do some more cooking and just being around a little more to do the general running of errands. Matt was kind enough to take on those roles when I was working full-time and so I realize that it’s a luxury to have somebody able to do it. I’m also guessing that midwifery school may be somewhat less time-intensive than law school (although I could be wrong about that) which will also hopefully allow for a little flexibility. Ultimately, I think I’d like to enjoy a number of years leading a somewhat crazy but ultimately fulfilling schedule as a midwife, and then eventually move into teaching nursing. The idea of eventual stability and plenty of time off seems like a natural evolution, and one which I’ll hopefully be able to pursue.
Matt and I have also decided that our temporary dual-income status probably means that we should take a somewhat exotic trip while we’re able. We’re still planning to pay off a good chunk of our debt, but have decided that we can probably also swing a trip to…Egypt and Greece. And possibly Italy. These are trips I’ve wanted to take for as long as I can remember, Matt is similarly gung-ho about them, and with some careful planning, it should be pretty feasible. Definitely more on that as details emerge.
Lastly, just to end on a food note, Aldi had a case of German spaetzle (essentially, thick egg noodles) the last time we were there, so on a whim we picked some up. I cooked them up and combined them with a little milk, a cup of cheese, some chopped broccoli, and a couple of tablespoons of Matt’s homemade hot sauce. Then we topped it off with cornflakes. It was surprisingly good! There’s nothing like going “off the page” to make you feel like you’re really cooking. Literally.
Friday afternoon Matt called me at school to tell me he had a bad headache and was losing portions of his vision and thus going to the ER. Because nothing around here is simple, I ran to the subway, took a train, and then caught a cab to (finally!) arrive where he was lying in a dark room with IV fluids running. (They had also given him a combination of morphine and Compazine which helped his headache, but made him feel strung-out and jittery for the next 24 hours.) Diagnosis? Migraines, probably retinal migraines, which we have since found out afflict a number of people in his immediate family. That’s somewhat reassuring, since it makes it probable that the diagnosis is correct, as opposed to something more serious; but, as with atopy or IBS or anything else, it’s never welcome news to be diagnosed with a chronic condition. For right now, though, we’re just infinitely thankful that it wasn’t anything more dangerous than that, and we’re happy that he’s feeling better.
Despite the fact that Matt was essentially post-dromal until Friday night or Saturday morning, we had a wonderful time with Rebecca here; as she put it, when we were all untidily inhaling massive plates of pasta one of her first nights here, “I like it that nobody’s trying to show off for each other here.” And that was pretty much the tone of the weekend. Since Matt still wasn’t feeling very well, we laid pretty low for the most part, but Rebecca and I were able to take in the National Archives (having whetted our appetite by watching National Treasure the night before), the Smithsonian Art Museum, and the Natural History Museum (or “the dead animal zoo,” as Matt called it), which we loved. It rained impossibly hard all day Thursday and Friday and into Saturday morning, making for some very wet feet and lots of soggy standing in line, but Saturday it finally cleared up just before noon and so we all went down and walked around the monuments–Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, and all the usual suspects. Then we went to Georgetown, where we had a tasty lunch and then walked it off shopping.
In short, we walked ourselves sleepy every day and came home and hit the hay about 9:30 every night. We also consumed lots of good food (what else would you expect? If there’s anybody who loves to eat more than the two of us put together, and I don’t think there are many, it would be Rebecca). This includes making Hootenanny for breakfast one day, which is something Matt introduced me to last year that his mom used to make, and which I love. It goes like this:
Hootenanny (Or however you’d like to spell it!)
Ingredients:
6 eggs
1 cup milk
1 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 Tablespoons butter
In blender or large bowl mix 6 eggs, 1 cup of milk, 1 cup of flour and salt. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Melt 6 Tablespoons of butter or margarine in 9 x 13 inch pan. Pour in egg mixture. Bake about 20 minutes or until puffy and golden. Serve immediately. It is like a souffle and will slowly fall. Serve with syrup, jam or fruit.
We eat it with syrup and we also broke down and had sausage on the side. It was great, and CHEAP. (And, you know, full of butter, but that’s beside the point.) I, for one, am hoping it shows up on the breakfast (or dinner) stage more often as the weather turns cold.
Today, we took Rebecca to the airport, had lunch at Thai Place and then hit Filene’s Basement because they were having a suit sale and Matt, distinguished businessman that he is, goes through those things like water these days! 🙂
Tonight, we made a second batch of potato soup (a double batch, in fact) with croutons for dinner, and then used the onion butts, celery ends and leaves, and potato peels to make vegetable stock! We filled a pot with water, added the above vegetable matter along with a carrot and a few pinches of rosemary and savory and about a tablespoon of salt, and let it simmer for a couple of hours. Then we strained it and put it in yogurt containers (just because that’s what we have on hand) and plan to freeze it. We’re hoping to spend this winter experimenting with that perfect conjunction of healthy/frugal/comfort food that is SOUP. This will be an excellent start. We ended up with about 70 ounces of stock, and it turned out great! Made from nothing but essentially vegetable garbage, water, and spices! Chalk up another point for “made from scratch.”
And now, because this post was the last procrastination I was going to allow myself, I have to go finish my paper that’s due tomorrow.
I’m feeling more upbeat today than I have in awhile. It could be because I had an extra cup of coffee this morning. It could be because yesterday, in an unspoken agreement that things had maybe gotten kind of… *whisper* boring the past few days, we decided to shake things up Matt-and-Katie style: we walked to the store to buy peanuts and then came home and made peanut butter and cookies. I think lately we’ve both been so worn down and tired after 12 hours out of the house every day (plus, you know, being crime victims and all) that we’ve just come home to flop, making us feel a certain lack of refreshment even after having time off, due to a dearth of what I think of as “constructive leisure,” better known maybe as simply fun. Which, if I think about it, we usually get in the form of cooking or traveling. It’s been a little while since we’ve done much of either. (I also think that I have a tendency to freak out in the first few weeks of new things, fast-forwarding through the wasted years of my life that I can see myself having spent on a path which was in hindsight so clearly not right, based on the first uncomfortable weeks of adjustment–instead of just taking it in stride that every road has its bumps that I’ll adjust to eventually. I’m working on trying the latter tack earlier rather than later in the game, but all you have to do is read the blog, or ask poor Matt, to see how well that’s going.)
On the cooking front, though…no brag here, just fact, but I pretty much have perfected our cookie recipe. Here it is, in all its glory:
Whole-Wheat Oatmeal Peanut Butter Chocolate-Chip and Walnut Cookies 2 sticks butter, softened 3/4 cup granulated sugar (we are loving Sucanat right now, but you don’t have to) 3/4 cup brown sugar 1 tsp vanilla 1/3 cup peanut butter 2 eggs 1-1/2 cups whole-wheat flour (we like finely milled, like pastry flour, but any kind works) 1 cup oatmeal (we use the quick-cooking kind, but this is not mandatory because you aren’t cooking it) 1 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt 12-oz package chocolate chips Chopped walnuts (I just kind of add these willy-nilly depending on how many I have)
This is how I do it: Preheat the oven to 375. 1. Cream the first 6 ingredients in the KitchenAid, though hand mixers would work too. 2. Try it and make sure everything is all right. 3. Add the next 3 ingredients and mix well. 4. Try it again. 5. Add the last two ingredients, mix well. 6. Get out a spoon instead of just putting your finger in it this time. We’re professionals here. 7. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto a cookie sheet. 8. Bake for 11 minutes.
NOW, I have found a marked difference in the appearance and texture of cookies I bake on an Air-Bake pan versus just regular Teflon cookie sheets. It’s a lot easier to get them off of the Teflon, but the results just aren’t as nice. They get too brown around the edges and they don’t have a uniform rise to them. I’ve also found that it’s key to take them out just before you think they’re done. You have to let them sit for a minute as they will be moist and soft, but that’s the key to achieving the irresistible, chewy-crisp texture which has us consuming these at a rate of 4 dozen per week these days, and that is not an exaggeration. I’ve found that this recipe makes between 3 and 4 dozen, depending on how liberal you are with the “tasting” while making them. I console myself with the thought that these are all more or less “wholesome” ingredients that, while perhaps a tad more caloric than, say, a Nutri-Grain bar or cup of Yoplait or other purportedly healthy snack, also don’t have any preservatives or chemicals in them. I’m not sure that actually counts for anything, but it feels almost as good as these taste.
And, on the traveling front, we’re hoping to make it camping in Shenandoah in a couple of weeks to catch the fall colors, which should be very exciting. The week after that, we’re looking forward to playing Host and Hostess to little sister. We’re not quite sure yet where we’re going to put her, but I’m sure we’ll find someplace.
On a totally unrelated note, this is a site I find terribly funny. If you don’t, I’m afraid it’s nothing I’m able to explain, but along with this one (and any other little funnies that big brother sees fit to send my way) I’ve finally found a way keep a smile on my face throughout the school day.
Yesterday we had a nice morning at home before we visited the Apple store as Matt is researching future computers, and hit Lenscrafters as I am once again beside myself with a scratch right on my glasses (they rejected my plea to replace it gratis and I’m grappling with whether unsullied vision is worth $75 to me), before I went to work and Matt made several amazing pizzas (baked potato, Mediterranean, and veggie). Today, we slept in late (skipping yoga–I’ve had a cold this week and was up late working last night, and I think we were both ready to take it a little bit easy), read the Sunday paper, went for a walk, and then pre-made a Mexican casserole for later in the week. That, of course, is what I offer unto you. It’s one of our favorites and a recipe I originally got from my sister-in-law, who also used to be a vegetarian. Here’s how we usually make it:
Mexican Casserole 1 can kidney beans, drained 1 can black beans, drained 8 oz jar salsa or picante sauce About a cup of frozen or canned corn 1 cup sour cream 1 can diced tomatoes with chilies, not drained 2 cups of cooked rice 1/4 tsp black pepper 1 cup taco-flavored cheese (or monterey jack) 1 cup cheddar cheese
Combine all but the cheddar cheese in a casserole dish, mixing well with a spatula or wooden spoon. Sprinkle cheddar over the top and bake around 350 degrees for about 30-45 minutes, or until the cheese is bubbly. Or, if you’re like me, broil until the cheese is melted, then scoop out a serving and finish heating it in the microwave.
We love it because it tastes great, is cheap and easy, and reheats really well. It’s also great as a dip for tortilla chips, incidentally.
It’s a funny story about this because I usually just kind of made it hit or miss from memory, but the second or third time I made it with Matt, I was curious just how far I had strayed from the recipe and so I got it out and followed it (I thought) to a T. Well, I realized I had gone wrong when Matt gagged down a few bites and then finally put down his fork and said, “I’m sorry, I can’t do this. This is just inedible.” What was wrong with it? Well, it was kind of like a variation on an old joke…Would you like a little Mexican casserole with your pepper? I couldn’t figure out where I had gone wrong. I thought maybe it was because I’d used freshly ground pepper instead of the regular prepackaged variety that it had been so…potent. After that I substantially decreased the pepper and otherwise went back to just sort of assembling it from memory. Today, I had the recipe out again because I was using a different brand of picante sauce and wanted to be sure I had the measurement right. I wondered aloud to Matt, “Gee, I still can’t figure out what went wrong that time…I mean, it says right here: 14 teaspoons of pepper.” Matt looked at me a little oddly, then went and got a pen and defined the little “1” over the “/4,” which I had somehow missed. So anyway, consider yourselves warned: that is ONE-FOURTH of a teaspoon of pepper, for those of you like me who apparently have no internal sense of reason by which these things might be governed.
To all of you who are wondering how we fared last night, on our rare foray out of the apartment, we’ll have you know that we enjoyed it very much. We started the evening by walking around Chinatown while we waited for a table at Matchbox (where, thanks to an exceptionally generous gift certificate, we were able to live it up by eating and drinking high on the hog); enjoying the energy of the downtown atmosphere, a little giddy to be “going out” together for the first time in a long time. We browsed through an eclectic Chinese grocery store and wandered back out on the street, very much enjoying the cool weather (and, in my case, very much celebrating the fact that I had decided against wearing a skirt–because especially as the sun went down, it got almost cold).
The more we spend time in DC, the more we love it; as our friend Hannah says, “it’s less of a city than just a really big town.” While the buildings and traffic and endless places to eat and be entertained give you a lot of the benefits and drawbacks of a big city, there isn’t the neverending crush of people and buildings that makes a lot of other cities feel cramped and sunless. And of the buildings that are there, so many of them are historically interesting; and because of the requirement that nothing be taller than the Washington monument, there’s a sense of space and openness that you don’t get in a lot of other places. We were able to enjoy a nice view of the sky as the sun went down, and by that time our table was ready and we went into the restaurant.
One of our favorite things right off the bat was the atmosphere. Everything was classy and nice without being intimidating or pretentious. We were happy to dig into delicious food while reasonably casually dressed and not feel like we didn’t fit in. The music was loud enough to almost drown out the diners around us, but not so loud that we couldn’t carry on a conversation ourselves. We were amused to listen to the conversation of the couple next to us–obviously on a first date, the guy did all the talking and on such assorted fascinating topics as himself, his grades in law school, and, of all things, stem cell research. (He went to Georgetown; that probably explains a lot.) Talk about sinking fast. They were probably five or six years older than us and I will say that I was awash with gratitude that I’ve escaped the necessity to participate in “the dating scene.” It combines a number of the things I hate most, such as meeting new people, making small talk, and getting dressed up; I really felt for the poor girl next to us, forced to listen to this bonehead rattle on about himself without being able to get a word in edgewise. It makes me feel so fortunate that instead of a serious of anxiety-provoking encounters with people like him, I have a best friend and constant companion who (for those of you who know Matt will agree) only enlivens and enriches any situation in which we might find ourselves. Awww.
A note about the food: sausage, onion, kalamata olive and garlic pizza; a couple of brewskis for the gentleman and a Gingersnap (ginger syrup, pineapple rum, and Sprite) for me, topped off with chocolate chip banana-bread pudding split between the two of us. Ah, gift certificates…how we love leaving the table with stuffed bellies and no detriment to our own checking account!
After that, we stopped by a gathering assembled by Hannah and her boyfriend, which was really a very nice time. It was a good opportunity to get a glimpse of an apartment in which our entire living space would fit inside the bathroom, and around 11pm–way past our usual bedtime–we hopped on the Metro and headed for home. Sort of an interesting thing happened on the Metro when we saw an older man talking with a girl of maybe 12 who was on the train with her 5-year-old sister and who seemed to be lost. We both had kind of a funny feeling about it and Matt voiced my thoughts when he asked me quietly, “If he gets off at the same stop as them, do you want to get off too?” Impulsively, we did, and were wondering what we were going to do next when the man led them up to the Metro station manager and asked them to help the girls get home. We breathed a sigh of relief and got back on the train to go home. You never can be too careful these days, with men climbing in women’s windows and other ones hiding in boys’ closets.
Following our night of decadence, we started out this morning in the oppositve vein with a 9am class at Capitol Hill Yoga. Having been experiencing a lot of tightness in my neck and shoulders, compliments of my new occupation as law student, the hour-and-a-half class felt wonderful. It also gave us a chance, on the bike ride to and from, to fantasize wildly about the rowhouses in the more affluent section of Capitol Hill. It was a perfect morning for a bike ride, and the shady streets, lovely old houses, and grassy parks were overshadowed only by the breakfasty smells coming out of Jimmy T’s, the type of humble local joint that always catches our eye. Alas, they are a cash-only establishment and we had none. Brokenhearted, because we’ve wanted to try them for awhile (they serve both greasy breakfasts and a daily vegetarian special, which we feel fits perfectly with our own eclectic style of eating), we went home and made good on our promise to make those banana-walnut pancakes, since the sour milk was calling from the fridge. They were very good, and now we have some for the freezer as well. Other things we’ve made lately include our first batch of homemade refried beans and homemade peanut butter. We got the refried beans recipes from Tammy’s Recipes (which contains a ton of helpful and informative recipes and is run by one of the more gentle and thoughtful orthodox religious women bloggers [I think she may be Jewish?], who blogs intelligently about cooking and homebirth, among other things), and it is as follows:
Refried Beans
1 1/4 cups dried pinto beans, soaked overnight in enough water to cover 7 1/2 cups water 2 onions, peeled and cut in half 10 cloves garlic, peeled 2 Tablespoons butter 2 onions, finely chopped 2 teaspoons ground cumin 1 teaspoon ground coriander 1 teaspoon chili powder small bunch of fresh cilantro, chopped 3 garlic cloves, minced salt 2 ounces feta cheese fresh cilantro, for garnish
1. Drain pinto beans, and rinse and drain again. Heat water in large pot until boiling. Add soaked beans, two halved onions, and ten whole garlic cloves. Return to boiling and simmer, uncovered, for about 90 minutes, or until beans are very soft and water is almost all absorbed.
2. Melt butter in large skillet or stock pot. Add the two chopped onions, the cumin, ground coriander, and chili powder. Cook until onions are soft and translucent, about 15-20 minutes, adding water if needed to prevent scorching.
3. Stir in fresh cilantro, and the three remaining garlic cloves. Start adding beans, a spoonful at a time, frying for a couple minutes and mashing with a fork or potato masher as you add them. Continue until all beans have been added.
4. Lower heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until beans have thickened to consistency desired, about 30-40 minutes. Season with salt and ladle into serving dishes, topping with feta cheese and fresh cilantro for garnish.
We really, really liked these. We served them with tostadas last time, but would eat them plain or with cheese as well. The recipe above yields about 6 cups, so it’s an incredibly cheap food when you get down to it, with very little fat and lots of protein–great for vegetarians. And, as my mom points out, great for sitting around farting with your spouse afterward! (I’ll include a picture of the beans, rather than a picture of that.) For the peanut butter, just combine roasted peanuts, a little salt, and enough vegetable oil to lubricate and whirl it around in the food processor until it’s smooth. We keep it in the fridge but it’s still very spreadable. This goes onto sandwiches and all kinds of peanut sauce and curry, as well as into morning smoothies, which (since we’re doing recipes here) are as follows:
Morning Smoothies
1 cup of each of the following: Milk Vanilla yogurt Berries (fresh or frozen; we like either strawberries and raspberries, or just raspberries)
Probably about 1/4 cup peanut butter 1 banana
Process in the blender until smooth. Serves 2.
Delicious. Matt used to have these waiting when I would come home from work in the morning, and I would practically drool in the car just thinking about them.
Mild Red Chile Sauce (From The Mexican Cookbook; somewhat redacted and with my comments in parentheses)
Ingredients: 5 large fresh mild chilies, such as New Mexico or ancho (we’ve found pretty much anything will work, besides those small, wrinkly, unbelievably hot habaneros) 2 cups vegetable/chicken stock (I think we used water) 1 tbsp masa harina or 1 crumbled corn tortilla (masa is the powdered-corn base for tamales; it’s what really sends this over the edge and makes it taste like an authentically Mexican sauce, as opposed to just spicy spaghetti sauce) Large pinch of ground cumin 1-2 garlic cloves, finely chopped Juice of 1 lime Salt
1. Roast chiles under the broiler, turning so that all sides become somewhat blackened. You’ll probably hear them pop as they burst in the heat 2. Place chilies in a heatproof bowl and pour boiling water over them. Cover and let cool 20min. 3. Place the stock/water in a pan and bring to a simmer. 4. When the chilies are cooled, swelled up, and softened, remove with a slotted spoon. Remove the seeds, then cut or tear the flesh into pieces and place in a food processor or blender. Process to a puree, then mix in the hot stock. 5. Place the chili and stock mixture in a pan. Puree the masa or tortilla with enough water to make a thin paste, then add along with remaining ingredients. Cook for a few minutes until thickened, adding salt to taste.
This is a pretty flexible recipe–we’ve used all kinds and quantities of chilies, and this last time Matt added tomatoes, with delicious results. We were upset to find that our last batch molded after just a few weeks–you wouldn’t think mold could stand the heat, but apparently it can. Just goes to show that you should probably pick up 7 or 8 bags of blue corn chips and Aldi’s and get it while the gettin’ is good.
Tonight we’re planning to use up the remainder of the refried beans, some leftover rice, and some of Matt’s hot sauce in bean and cheese burritos, which we haven’t made before but which may have to make it into the rotation if all goes well.
And Best Buy still has our TV, but as you can see, we haven’t exactly been bored yet.
Today Matt and the cats stayed in and slaved over house and home, while I went to work from 11 in the morning until 7pm. It’s a nice shift because it doesn’t throw off my sleep schedule in either direction, and I still get home and have a little evening left. Work went really well, and I came home to a spotless house and one of the best dinners I’ve ever had–Matt had made tamales, which are always a favorite, and this time, in addition to sour cream and homemade salsa, we had leftover pibil which he had the brilliance to grace them with. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. What a husband! And then, what better to chase away the burn of a few too many tamales with spicy pork, than a dish of semifreddo? Nothing that we could think of, so that’s what we had. The semifreddo ended up with more the consistency of a permanent milkshake, which I’m not sure is what’s intended, but we aren’t complaining. We feel like one could almost decrease the honey from 3/4 of a cup to a 1/2; the flavor isn’t overwhelming, but it’s certainly a very, very rich presence, especially in the presence of all that butterfat. Yum. Life is so good, even if I did temporarily forget that this morning in my despair over the fact that the (eczema/dermatitis/staph–it depends on who you ask) under my nose hasn’t gotten any better… but. You can only ask for so much in life.
From Tom Philpott at Grist, an excellent source of environmental news, commentary–and, occasionally, recipes.
Honey semifreddo 3/4 cup raw local honey 3 large eggs, yolks and whites separated 2 cups chilled heavy cream A pinch of sea salt
With a whisk or electric mixer in a small bowl, beat the honey and yolks until thick and pale. Set aside. In another bowl, whisk egg whites until they hold stiff peaks. In a large chilled metal bowl, whip chilled cream and a pinch of salt until cream holds soft peaks. Gently, carefully fold in the egg yolk-honey mixture until fully incorporated. Gently and carefully fold in the egg whites until fully incorporated. Transfer to freezing container and freeze for at least four hours.
Yields about a quart and a half of semifreddo.
Note: To adapt this recipe to other flavor schemes, replace the honey with about 3/4 cup raw organic sugar, whipping it into the egg yolks. Fold in other flavorings at the end: ground nuts such as pistachios, cooled, melted chocolate, loosened with cream, fruit purees, etc.
And last but not least, here’s Patches helping Matt practice the horn.
Yesterday we spent much of the day “feathering our nest,” as my mom would call it. Hanging up pictures and other things that had been put on the back burner while I finished finals and Matt was busy at work. We also watched Knocked Up (verdict: not nearly as funny as Superbad, though very realistic in how many doctors react to a patient who wants to be an active participant in her own labor) and I improvised some lentil soup:
Matt & Katie 