answer to a maiden's prayers

this blog has seen several iterations, from travel journal to home reno blog to a small business-centered space, but at its inception, it was all about the meals i was making as a newly married person. i don't blog much about food anymore, though as a full-time parent, i cook more now than ever. as 2012 dawned, bringing with it a new addition to our family (Virginia Frances, born on January 6), i realized i had to get more organized about the way i plan, shop for, and make our meals. my biggest challenge: dealing with all the recipes i've clipped from magazines over the years. i'm a nearly lifelong magazine junkie (seriously, i can remember hoarding my Highlights  magazines as a child) and have always struggled with what to do with issues i've already read but with which i'm not quite ready to part. enter technology: pinterest has now helped replace the shelter and design mags that used to fill boxes and boxes in my basement (okay, they still do, but i have big plans to divest myself of those this spring). but i was still holding on to years and years of Martha Stewart Living, among others, just for the recipes. a couple of years ago i started tearing out recipes and putting them in paper folders, but that was getting terribly unwieldy in my tiny kitchen. i thought pinterest might be my salvation again, but my "recipes to try" board there was starting to look like a Better Homes and Gardens recipe archive, and while i'm not embarrassed to admit to subscribing to the same magazines my grandmother reads, i didn't really need to recreate bhg.com elsewhere. 

then this week i just stumbled upon a site i have to share, since it's already revolutionized the way i think of and file my recipe clippings. project foodie shares (and lets you save and share) recipes from the most recent issues of Bon Appétit, Cooking Light, Cook's Illustrated, Martha Stewart Living, Everyday Food, Fine Cooking, Food & Wine, Gourmet, Saveur, Southern Living, Sunset, and of course, Better Homes and Gardens. and it's FREE. i feel like a huge organizational burden has been lifted from me. all this new digitizing is so divine, i fear it can't last - will project foodie go the way of my dearly departed-then-reconfigured bloglines, and will pinterest end up as the next myspace? let's hope not, since i'm off to save scores of recipes and images to both. first, i'll share a recent fave here, for old time's sake, from Sunset via myrecipes.com:

Wild Mushroom and Butternut Squash Bread Pudding 


3 cups cubed butternut squash, cut into ¾” chunks

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt, divided

1 teaspoon pepper, divided

About 4 tbsp. unsalted butter, divided

3 leeks, white and light green parts only, thinly sliced and rinsed well

2 garlic cloves, minced

3/4 pound mixed wild mushrooms, sliced

1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves

6 cups cubed rustic white bread, cut into 1-in. cubes, lightly toasted

3 cups half-and-half

4 large eggs

1 tablespoon flour

1/4 cup shredded parmesan cheese

1 cup shredded gruyère cheese

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 375°. Heap squash on a rimmed baking sheet, drizzle with oil and 1/2 tsp. each salt and pepper, and toss to coat. Bake, stirring occasionally, until tender and golden brown, about 35 minutes. Transfer to a bowl.

2. Melt 2 tbsp. butter in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add leeks with 1/4 tsp. salt; cook until softened. Add garlic, cook 2 minutes, and add mixture to squash.

3. Melt remaining 2 tbsp. butter in same pan over medium heat. Add mushrooms and 1/4 tsp. each salt and pepper. Increase heat to medium-high and cook, stirring, until mushrooms have released their liquid and are beginning to brown, about 6 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in thyme.

4. Add mushrooms to squash-leek mixture. Stir in bread; scoop into a buttered 9- by 13-in. baking dish.

5. Whisk together half-and-half, eggs, remaining 1/2 tsp. salt and 1/4 tsp. pepper, the flour, and parmesan in a medium bowl. Pour custard over bread mixture and let stand 10 minutes. Top with gruyère, then bake, uncovered, until cheese is melted and beginning to brown and custard is just set (poke with a knife to check), 30 to 35 minutes.

Make ahead: Through step 4, 1 day ahead, covered and chilled; or finish bread pudding 1 day ahead, chill, and reheat at 375° for 30 minutes.

Serves 8-10

at least i made brunch

we don't entertain nearly as much as we once did or would like to. our little house, two crazy dogs, and no backyard space to speak of don't really lend themselves to big parties, especially with kids. but once in a while we have a few friends to dinner or, as was the case this morning, brunch. i always look at these occasions as a chance to try out new recipes, a practice that d has rightly pointed out has a high probability of back-firing. fortunately, today's tester recipe was a big hit with our guests, my godmother and her husband. i adapted it from this recipe from Simply Recipes, using 8 eggs, crusty french bread, farmer's market tomatoes (two colors!), zucchini, fresh basil, and Dubliner Irish cheddar, and baking it in an oval dish rather than a 9x13 casserole. INSANELY good and highly recommended. (image from Simply Recipes, because it didn't occur to me to photograph mine until after we'd eaten half of it.)

jumping the shark

drew asked a trenchant question yesterday as we were passing a horde of punk kids milling around outside a house, instruments and attitude in tow: "we've moved on to the next phase in our lives, haven't we?"

we were on our way home from the portland yard, garden and patio show, having spent a good five and a half hours, not including the hour walk each way, exploring such scintillating topics as "gardening with succulents" and "hardscaping for landscape success." and we were looking forward to a quiet evening of magazine perusal, following an early-bird dinner at the original taco house. so, yeah, i'm going to say we've moved on to the next phase in our lives. so far, it's pretty fun, until i find myself staring wistfully at the live music listings in the paper and wondering if i'll ever go to a club show again. eh, club show, garden show - what's the diff?

tonight we had a little oscar party in our shared house, so i actually do have some leftovers to report. n made vietnamese salad rolls with shrimp and a spicy peanut sauce, so to continue with the hand-food theme, we made tilapia tacos with a yummy, spicy mango salsa. i say "we" because now that we actually have access to a kitchen big enough for two to use, drew has been prepping up a storm in addition to fulfilling his long-standing role as "the person in the house who handles meat-cooking." another phase in our lives together, and very rewarding, might i add.

recapping october

wowzer it's been a long time since i've written. of course lots has happened in the past month or so, including two weddings. in early october we flew to san diego for d's cousin tiff's wedding. we were there for five days or so, and able to visit the insanely wonderful san diego zoo, home of the free-range peacock and other anomalies. we also took a behind-the-scenes tour of sea world, where tiff works, and met some fairly awe-inspiring beluga whales.

lastly, but not chronologically, we went to san diego mission, which is pretty much ground zero of western american catholicism. it's a gorgeous place. i probably shouldn't mention the cigars we got in old town san diego for tiff's wedding party; they ended in ignominy for some of us who shall remain nameless. suffice to say, anise-flavored tobacco and an open bar are an unhappy combination for the novice cigar-smoker.

ok, then my mom got married. for those of you keeping score at home, that's three weddings in 13 months for the women of my family - me, my grandmother and my mother. it was a spectacular, moving weekend full of good people, good food, good fun. and e and p were blissfully happy and gorgeous throughout. and i'm happy to report that she is recovering nicely from her baltimore separation anxiety. i go next week to visit them in chattanooga, after another stop in portland.

and that's about it. as for last night's leftovers, they are a sagey turkey meatloaf that i adapted from "joy of cooking" (the edition before this 75th anniversary edition that's just come out), sauteed red cabbage with golden raisins, and pan-fried confetti potatoes with rosemary and lemon juice. not bad for a tuesday night comfort food meal.

ode to aldi

lately i've been telling anyone within earshot about aldi.

the cheap-as-sin german supermarket has an outlet in lovely glen burnie, and i recently made my first pilgrimage there. it's the kind of place that has a bag of 3 romaine hearts for $1.49, two huge boneless, seasoned pork chops for $3.21, chicken broth for 37 cents a can, and - be still my beating heart - ten different varieties of german chocolate. also, you have to bring and/or buy your own bags, bag your groceries, and put a 25 cent deposit down on a grocery cart. they know what they're doing over there.

my trip yielded such goodies as private label nutella (which we've been applying directly to homemade ice cream) and an ungodly number of frozen tilapia fillets for something like $3.

last night, flat out of recipe ideas, i defrosted a couple of fillets, then threw some panko breadcrumbs into a skillet with fresh basil from the garden, crushed red pepper, sea salt, black pepper and a healthy dose of olive oil, ladled the mixture over the fish, and broiled it for 7 minutes in the toaster oven. with a green salad and amstel light, it was the perfect low labor, low heat, low cost summer meal. rock on, aldi, rock on.

recycling

i've always been a magazine junkie. always. there was that notorious car & driver subscription at 10, archaeology at 11, and let us not neglect teen, to which i subsribed long before i actually became one and wised up to the fact that bubblegum pink was not the most sophisticated of lipstick hues.

this periodical obsession has continued into adulthood, reaching its apogee (or perhaps its nadir) a couple of years ago, when i held subsriptions to two weeklies and something like five monthlies. ludicrous. the amount of trees consumed to feed my addiction was no doubt obscene. so i've scaled back. just the essentials. new yorker. domino. martha stewart (yes, she IS essential). and now, a mystery subscription to house beautiful that i myself did not place and will soon be canceling.

of course this doesn't mean my obsession has waned, just my personal investment therein (and that of the world's lumber supply). fortunately, i have hit upon something of a solution, one which exploits my packrat tendencies - i've started rereading all of the magazines i've saved over the past five or so years. and wouldn't you know it, it's like i've never cracked them open before.

i've been methodically working through the back issues of martha in particular, combing them for recipes to try, a list of which i now keep in my recipe notebook (which sounds more anal than it is). on saturday, abbs came over for lunch in the garden before we went to see "candida" at everyman.

i sprung no fewer than three new recipes on her: a warm spring salad with poached egg, bacon and peas; a potato and tomato galette (for which i inaugurated my mandoline) with fresh sage from the garden; and watermelon, blueberries and strawberries with feta and cracked black pepper. i served d the same when he got home from germany on sunday (yay), and added a peach and raspberry crumble that wasn't the biggest success (the topping was more crumb than crumble).

oh well. at least the garden is thriving, especially with all the rain we're having. the coleus in particular have probably doubled in size since i took this shot a couple of weeks ago. those things are off the hook.

in more exciting news, my friend melissa recently hosted a radio program in l.a., interviewing a prominent gay priest and one of my favorite essayists, anne lamott. you can listen to it here:
http://www.publicradio.org/tools/media/player/kpcc/news/shows/zocalo/2006/06/20060611_zocalo

farewell dinner

April 2006 012
Originally uploaded by na_praha.

this week sounded really bad on paper: left job, had oral exam on thucydides and herodotus, responsible for initiating class discussion on marx, etc.

but it turned out to be rather a lovely week - the weather was spectacular, not having to work meant i could really prepare for my oral, and on tuesday i was able to get together with my mom for pizza in her back garden, followed by dinner wed. at our house with justin, coralie, spenser, and amy.

our excuse for gathering was the end of my contract, and by that night i was largely over my monday malaise (though no more prepared to deal with four free days a week). with the exception of a fairly unappealing fava (a santorinian split pea appetizer), the meal was yummy: d grilled feta with peppers and onions, coralie brought a wonderfully grassy small-batch cheddar and spicy crackers, and i improvised a vegan-friendly risotto with baby portabellas, canellini, edamame and scallions which drew did a mean job of tending (the only downside of risotto - all that broth-adding and stirring). served the risotto with an avocado and orange salad on spring greens, and finished the whole thing off with a homemade cantaloupe, strawberry and basil sorbet and grilled pineapple. simple and good.

oh, and they brought us a bottle of evan williams single barrel bourbon. oh.my.god.so.good. so good that it's going camping with us and drew's parents this weekend. but i might not share.

sausage tacos (ewww)

so, remember how this was supposed to be a blog about DINNER? i clearly started it before i ran into my current state of profound, soul-sucking burnout. cooking? who cooks anymore? (making tea sandwiches and pumpkin bread from a mix for last weekend's book club meeting really did not count.)

this week, i made dinner once, but that was only because i felt sorry for d, who has been responding to my queries of "what did you have for dinner?" with really tragic replies like, "a banana. and a salad." i've literally not been home an entire evening this week.

well, i threw together some chicken sausage tacos that were tasty despite being almost entirely canned (and having a vaguely unsavory name - see www.urbandictionary.com for more information than you really needed to know).

but this weekend i'll get back into the kitchen as we're hosting easter brunch at our humble little abode.