This veggie came in our CSA box this week. Josh was digging through the box to see if we got bok choy (we HATE bok choy, so he was going to take it to work), when he came up with this.
I’d taken a peak a few days before to see what was coming, so I knew it was specialty cauliflower. But he decided it’s alien cauliflower.
I have a bunch of food-related goals on my list for 2012. So far I’ve been failing on stockpiling food in my freezer. I’m just so tired during the week and that carries over to the weekend. It just doesn’t get done!
Tasha got me hooked on recipes from Budget Bytes. If you haven’t browsed cooked devoured everything on her site yet, YOU MUST. One thing I really love about the recipes is that they’re practical for people who work. She gives recipes for burritos to keep in your freezer. Vegetarian like me? She’s got one for you. (And others, too. With a nifty label.) Lots of the recipes are quick with simple ingredients. Translation: Easy for a weeknight when you’ve got no time to cook.
So when I saw this recipe for Hearty Black Bean Quesadillas, and read that she froze her leftovers, a light went on. It’s easy AND freezable? Weeknight stockpiling, ahoy.
Josh works late, so I eat without him about half the time. I’m sorry, but I am HUNGRY at 6:30 and don’t want to wait until 8. I start cooking and if he’s home, we eat together. Otherwise, the TV is my friend.
This was so easy that I started cooking the one I was going to eat and stuffed the other ones and dumped them in the freezer before it was done. Twelve delicious quesadillas in the freezer to eat later. Josh and I each ate one the first day and one the second day. So, 16 total. I call that a win.
I doubled the recipe. I used packaged taco mix. I used three cans (instead of two) of black beans. I would have used less cheese, though you do need cheese as the glue to hold a quesadilla together. I omitted cilantro because Josh doesn’t like it. I added an extra half cup of corn.
I made pickled onions with this recipe. It’s so easy — it takes maybe 10 minutes, including time to find the jars. Chop, dump, stuff in some cilantro, wait a day, and you’ve got a topping for tacos, soup or salad!
I have always loved pecans. In salads. In pie. In my face. So when we moved to this apartment, I was really excited about the pecan trees in our yard. Well, technically not in our yard, but hear me out! There’s a pecan tree right at the edge of our lawn, in the neighbor’s driveway. They rent from the same people we do, and the pecans fall into our yard, and I was the only one who cared about them, so… Mine!
Same thing on the other side. There’s a vacant lot next to us, with a single tree. The guy who owns it lives in Chicago now, but it used to be his grandma’s land, so he’s kept it. Apparently he stops by about once a year to sit under the tree in a lawn chair. I like to think that’s the kind of guy who doesn’t mind someone enjoying pecans from his grandmama’s tree.
So, imagined approval from my neighbors in hand, I collected 10 lbs. of pecans this fall. I brought about half with me to Ohio at Christmas, and gave some to my mom, sister and gramma, leaving plenty for my face.
And I learned a surprising amount with this whole process; apparently you can’t just go pick the things off the ground and call it done.
First thing: I don’t need to panic as the pecans start to fall — they’ll continue to do so for about a month, maybe six weeks. The squirrels can have some; each tree is capable of producing about 50 lbs. of nuts!
Second thing: Pecans grow in fleshy green husks, like so.
The husk dries out and turns brown as it dries. It looks sort of flower-like during this process:
The pecan then falls out of the husk, leaving the husk on the tree or elsewhere on the ground. That‘s the time to pick them, it turns out. Because I jumped the gun, I ended up prying the husks off myself. Which is kinda dumb, because — surprise — those pecans are generally not fully formed. Sorry if your pecans suck, family!
After you pick them, the pecans need to be cured in a breathable bag for a couple weeks, at which point you’re supposed to be able to crack them cleanly. These have been waiting for a couple months, but I don’t think they’re quite there yet. These things better be worth it.
…Who am I kidding? I’ll still pick them again next year, even if they don’t work out this time. Hope for pecan pie springs eternal!
My favorite kind of bouquet: cilantro in a mug of water. Trim the ends first and change the water frequently, and it should last almost a week.
(This post brought to you via my phone. This may increase my posting frequency. Unfortunately, it’ll probably just be photos of random things.)
(Also also: my Gramma had mugs like this when I was a kid. I was so excited to find a pair of them in some boxes of stuff CTS was getting rid of. I may have squealed.)
Josh often goes full days only eating dinner because his work is so demanding. (He just started a new job last week, so hopefully these days are behind him.) To help him keep his blood sugar regular, I made him granola bites. I based my recipe off the Cardamom Granola Bar recipe on www.allrecipes.com.
I didn’t have cardamom (of course! after Chris pointed it out at the market and everything!), so I subbed in equal parts ginger and cinnamon for it. I upped the nuts and didn’t just use walnuts… I used the cheap peanuts, some candied walnuts, some pecans. I basically just used what I had in the pantry. I also added some flax. I added chopped up dried apricots, dried cranberries and dried cherries. Again, what I had in the pantry. I had some old-fashioned oats and some quick oats. Honey, yes. Brown sugar, half the amount. Mixed it all up, and baked it in a mini muffin pan for portions.
I put servings of two bites in each sandwich bag and put all the individual serving bags in a gallon zipper bag in the pantry. Every morning, Josh would put a couple bags of granola bites in his backpack and eat them when he was starving and couldn’t get to a real meal.
A word of caution: there’s a fine line between “done” and “burnt” with these. Like microwave popcorn. That’s the best analogy I’ve got.
Last Thanksgiving, Chris and I made Thanksgiving dinner for his co-workers. Because they work around the clock, every day, somebody has to miss out on their holiday meal. Luckily, the company recognizes that, and Chris volunteered to feed them.
Except somebody had to roast the turkey while the other somebody was at work. Sure, I can totally roast a turkey. I mean, it isn’t as if I’ve never roasted a turkey before, right? Oh, wait, no I haven’t. I was terrified of giving the whole team salmonella, and texted Chris with questions: How far do you insert the thermometer? What if it was too close to the bone and I didn’t know it and then it was underdone and then everybody got sick? You know, the usual Thanksgiving jitters. And in the meantime, I was cooking collard greens and corn stuffing and making a regular Southern Thanksgiving meal.
However. We all survived. And that turkey was delicious. I know you don’t eat meat, though, so let’s get to the important part: dessert. My dad’s family is a bit, shall we say… domestically challenged. So one aunt makes buckeyes that are tooth-achingly sweet, and another makes tasty sugar cookies, but that particular aunt married in, so I think that doesn’t count.
My mom’s family, however? That’s a whole ‘nother story. Cookies and pies and fruit desserts and this wonderful pumpkin roll. And pie. (Can you tell which family traditions are important to me?) So for the office Thanksgiving, I wanted to make sure there was pie. I made one traditional pumpkin pie (and by “traditional,” I mean “traditional in my family” — so I used the recipe on the back of the Libby’s pumpkin puree), and one from scratch (and by “from scratch,” I mean “I used pre-made crust. If Gramma don’t make no pie crust, Tasha don’t make no pie crust.”)
The one from scratch uses Alton Brown’s recipe. If you’ve ever made one of his recipes, you know that they’re long and involved, but the results are worth it. The one exception this rule is the roasted turkey, linked above — it’s amazingly tasty and moist, but it uses a high temp for only a few hours. So for the pie, I hacked open a pumpkin, roasted it, scooped out the flesh and pureed it, grated nutmeg and separated eggs.
Then I made 10 trips up and down the stairs to load the car with the food (still hot and covered with foil), utensils and hot pads, spilling collard juice on the passenger side seat for good measure, and drove it to Chris’ office.
And one of Chris’ coworkers asked where the sweet potato pie was. This year, he can make Thanksgiving dinner.
The first fall I was back in Atlanta, I obviously had a lot of time on my hands, so I baked a lot. (Fall 2010 was a blur of work events.) Even though I didn’t make a post, I was clearly thinking about the blog, because I found these photos of the gingerbread I made to celebrate the cooler weather.
I used 101 Cookbooks’ Black Sticky Gingerbread Recipe, and it is amazing. It is indeed sticky, but it’s also delicious. I ended up having too much batter, so I baked a mini pan as well. The batter is also very liquidy, so pour it into the dish either near the stove or on the rack itself. I also may have had some spillageoverflow from the pan as the bread baked, so I’d put foil on the floor of your oven, or put the dish on a tray.
It’s worth it though, because it basically turns out to be a pan of fall, with a dense, crumbly texture.
The top will collapse a bit as it cools. Also, food photography is difficult. Yours won't be as green as these photos make it seem. Honest!
I could eat my weight in beets, I think. If there’s a beet salad at a restaurant, that’s always the one I’m ordering. So then I thought, “Self, why don’t we eat beets at home?” I searched online, found out how to roast beets and visited my local grocery store.
I didn’t take any before pictures.
Beets out of the oven
Beets with no skins and cubed.
Dooooooo it! I’ve been eating beets on my daily salad. With candied walnuts and goat cheese. Yums.
I am not a cook. I am a person who enjoys cooking; I am a person who enjoys cooking shortcuts. Today, I had to come home for a little more than an hour in the middle of my workday to let the AC repairman in. While I was home, I finished watching Julie & Julia. I will never be Julia Child. I most likely will never make another Julia Child recipe (because of the whole vegetarianism thing).
It made me think, though, about things I have cooked from scratch. One thing I did in past was Indian food. I’ve made tofu masala, naan and vegetable samosas. Now, though, I’ve started buying frozen naan, masala sauce and frozen samosas from Trader Joe’s. Just add tofu. Anyway, all my thinking made me want Indian food. So that’s what I did.
browning the tofu
sauce added!
Trader Joe's makes dinner easy.
finished dinner
and a little drinky-drink
