It Was a Dark and Stormy Night

Nothing strikes fear in my heart quite like a forecast of heavy rain and high winds.  Why?  Drivers around here do not slow down for anything as minor as torrential rain.  I have an irrational fear of flooding.  We have a lot of big trees that could crush our house.  Worst of all - even a moderate breeze can knock out our power.  No power means no heat, no hot water, no refrigerator (don't open the door or everything will spoil!) and no means of cooking.

Our forecast today includes not only heavy rain and high winds, but wintry mix, freezing rain, and black ice.  Blech.

I know you are supposed to have emergency supplies for this situation, and I do, but I always struggle to come up with food for this situation.  Most things I can think of need to warmed - soup, canned beans - or need refrigerator accompaniments - tuna, salad.

I settled on peanut butter and crackers, cereal bars and fruit.  I made some banana bread this morning so we can have a treat in our candlelit coldness.  I have some juice boxes and bottled water.

If all else fails, red wine tastes good at room temperature.

Wherever you are, I hope you are safe, warm, dry and well-fed.  Be careful out there today!

So, What's For the Most Important Dinner of the Year?

Meal planning is a hassle.  Trying to come up with dinner every night, never mind finding the energy and motivation to cook the meal can be a challenge.  But what happens when you triple the guest list, up the expectations and raise the potential disaster level?

Yes - I am cooking Christmas dinner.

My parents and my sister's family will be joining us for this all important meal.  There are some restrictions - a few allergies, low salt, no seeds - but nothing too daunting.  The more important issue is coming up with an appropriately festive menu.

Tradition in our family means lasagna and filet mignon.  Both things center on beef so I don't want to spend hours preparing a meal that I can't even eat.  Not having pasta on Christmas would be like not having a tree (which would be fine with me - the tree is some much work and totally over-rated) but I can easily replace the meat lasagna with manicotti or ravioli and no one will complain.  Replacing the filet mignon would be a harder sell.  I could not serve a completely meatless meal.  That would not be fair to my guests.  It is my choice not to eat meat, not theirs.  I think I would be comfortable cooking the beef and serving it, though if it bothers me at the last minute I know Matt will pick up the slack.  I just need to come with side dishes that I can eat as a main course and not feel cheated and that still accompany the rest of the foods we have.  No one meal should require this much brain power!

On the other hand, I am so grateful to have this problem.  I have a wonderful family that enjoys spending time together, a house to hold all these people, and the luxury of choosing the food I want to eat.  Nothing like the stress of a big family dinner to remind you of all the good things.

I guess if all else fails, I will have Christmas cookies.  Cookies and milk make everything better.

I Know I Have it Here Somewhere

Sarah is having a friend over on Sunday afternoon.  We are going to decorate the Christmas tree (free labor!), bake some cookies (more free labor!) and visit a house nearby that decorates with some serious lights.  I want to make something for dinner that will be warm and cozy, and that the girls will enjoy.  Vegetarian chili!  I have a great recipe for that and Sarah's friend really likes Mexican food.  No problem, let me just pull out the recipe and write up a shopping list.

The recipe must be in my binder of all my old family favorites.  Not there?  Maybe I just misfiled it under the wrong tab in the binder.  (Side note - yes, I have a binder instead of a recipe box and yes it is organized with alphabetized section tabs.  Don't judge.)  No not in there.  Was it from one of the Vegetarian Times issues?  I went through all the issues I have and could not find it.  I then moved on to my favorite cookbooks, and then my not-so-favorite cookbooks, and then on to the cookbooks I never use.  I know I have this recipe.  I made it all winter last year!

Then I remembered - it was my recipe and I put it on my blog, this blog, that I work on every day.

So, check it out - my Chili-Cornbread Pie.  It really is a great recipe; one worth remembering.

Giving Thanks for Thanksgiving

So how did it go?  All was well on the holiday.

My sister-in-law made me special soup.  This may not seem like a big deal, but it made my day.  We always start the meal with a tortellini meatball soup.  Not very Thanksgiving-y you say?  Too bad, it is my favorite part of the meal.  My SIL made a separate portion with vegetable broth and no meatballs.  No one even noticed I had anything different and I got to enjoy hot soup on a very cold Thanksgiving.

She also made eggplant parm.  Also not typical on everyone's Thanksgiving table, but my husband grew up having an entire pasta course (with meatballs and sausage) at Thanksgiving dinner so this did not seem out of place.   My Thanksgiving dinner consisted of broccoli gratin and eggplant parm.  The only person who commented on my plate?  My husband!  But not in a critical way.  He was worried I was missing out on other things, like the stuffing and cranberry sauce, which I enjoy so much.  I did miss those, and I had a few bites, but it did not go with the other things I was eating.

Overall, a successful, confrontation-free holiday.  Hurray!

In thinking about next year, I want to come up with a dish that will truly replace the turkey.  Not tofurkey, or any of those terrible meat replacement products (you already know how I feel about those).  I want something that goes with the mashed potatoes and corn that I enjoy and makes me feel like I am eating like everyone else.  Suggestions?

For a first meat-free Thanksgiving, I will not be greedy.  I am putting this in the win column and moving on from there.

Gobble, Gobble

Happy Thanksgiving all!

This will be my first turkey-less Thanksgiving and I must admit I am a little nervous.  We always spend the holiday with my sister-in-law, who is an amazing cook.  She has been so sweet about my new dietary restrictions.  She checked with me last week to see what I would and would not eat and is planning a special main dish for me.  I was uncomfortable with the attention at first, but I know she will be much happier knowing I can enjoy a delicious meal and not have to pick around what she normally serves for the holiday meal.  And she promised to have peppermint Oreos!  What more could I want?

So, why I am nervous?  We don't spend a lot of time with my husband's family since they live in another state.  Thanksgiving is our one main visit with them every year.  I don't want to deal with the questions and the comments.  I am terrible at defending myself and I despise confrontation.  Maybe I am worrying unnecessarily.  Maybe no one will notice or make any snide comments and we will just have a pleasant meal.

If not, I will drown my troubles in cookies.

No Substitutions, No Refunds

I have been trying to vary my protein sources, so I have been trying different versions of the meatless meatball.  The name is terrible.  Calling it a "meatless meatball" just makes it unappealing before I even taste it.

I hate the idea of substitutions for meat.  I want to enjoy any food on its own merits, not as a replacement for something I can't eat.  I don't think of veggie burgers as a substitute for hamburgers.  Nothing can replace the perfect burger, and I like veggie burgers just as they are.  I don't think of beans or eggs or eggplant and some sort of poor relation to meat.  These foods are delicious and wonderful in their own rights.

So, the meatless meatballs.  I have tried soy-based, rice-based, tofu-based and vegetable based versions, and so far they have all tasted awful.  I am wondering if it is the name creating expectations.  I need to find different ways of preparing these little nuggets unrelated to how I would use real meatballs.

And I need to call them something else, though "veggie balls" just sounds dirty.

Some Disassembly Required

Over the past week or so, I attended two parties.  For me, that is about as crazy as my social life gets.  Strangely enough, both hosts served lasagna for dinner.  In the past, I would be thrilled.  The cooks involved both make fantastic lasagna - everything from scratch, nothing jarred or processed.  Now, not so much.  You see, it was not just any lasagna, it was meat lasagna.

There were no other choices for meals at either party, so I a choice to make.  I could snack on salad and bread and skip the meal, leaving me hungry and cranky.  I could eat the lasagna, leaving me feeling guilty and uncomfortable.  I could ask for something else to eat, which I never really considered because that would be just plain rude.

My choice?  I ate the lasagna, sort of.  Yes, I quietly and subtly, took the layers apart and removed as much of the meat as possible.  People were talking and eating so no one seemed to notice my little pasta surgery.  I did not waste those meatballs; I gave my extra to Matt and Sarah who were more than happy to scoop up my rejects.  I am sure I looked ridiculous.  I am sure my plate looked like some kind of Italian tragedy.  I don't know if I made the best choice but I made the best decision I could at the time, both times, and I am comfortable with that.

Any ideas of another option?

If Elected, I Promise No Gratuitous Food Shots

Happy Election Day!  This is a great day.  Not only do we get to express democratic principles, but we will now get a break from the incessant phone calls, flyers, political ads and, best of all, shots of candidates eating food they don't like.

The local food stop is a classic campaign photo op.  Whether its cheese steaks in Philadelphia, pizza in Iowa (really?) or pie in New Hampshire, candidates roll into some local eatery famous for hosting candidates, take a bite of the specialty of the house for the cameras, and move on to the next event.

This whole things bothers me on so many levels.  First, I feel bad for all the unsuspecting patrons in the restaurant.  Sometimes they are vetted supporters who want nothing more than to watch their political hero lick an ice cream cone, but most of the time they look ordinary folk just trying to enjoy their morning cup of joe.  Second, what if the candidate doesn't like rhubarb pie or pineapple pizza or bison burger?  Too bad - just chew and smile.  Are there no vegetarians running for office?  Worst of all, the waste.  You know that cook made something really special when he got the call that the candidate and all the press would be showing up at his establishment.  Does anyone sit down and enjoy the meal the way it was intended?  Of course not!  They shovel a couple of bites, make sure the cameras were rolling, and leave.  All that hard work, heading for the trash can.

If I ever run for office (which will be never, but still I think about these things) I will have to find some other photo op.  I won't eat the steak, I don't like pie, and I cannot imagine what they do to pizza in Iowa.

Happy Halloween!

www.pillsbury.com

Since when does Halloween require a special meal?  If you look at any magazine or (God forbid) Pinterest, you will see slew of Halloween meal ideas.  Ghost grilled cheese, spider pizzas, monster mash.  Friends have posted pictures on Facebook of all the amazing Halloween meals they have created.  Why are we working so hard on a meal no one wants to eat anyway?  The kids would rather make a meal of Halloween candy, with a few granola bars or bags of pretzels thrown in for variety, and the adults just want to go to bed.  

I never made a special dinner for Halloween.  It was always what I could manage between getting Sarah ready for trick-or-treating and answering the door.  A favorite is a bowl of soup after walking the neighborhood - it gets cold out there!  I have serve eggs a couple of times, and leftovers.  Sarah asked for mummy dogs once - hot dogs wrapped in strips of dough like a mummy.  I made her help me so that was the last time she asked.  Those things take forever to wrap!

I compromised this year.  I made sweet potato black bean chili (which I don't even like, but that is another story).  It is orange and black, and it is warm, and best of all it is already made and easy to warm up whenever anyone gets hungry.  

Of course, they may just raid the candy bowl instead.   I won't know because I am going to bed.

New Order

In an effort to shake things up, I have been trying lots of new recipes.  I have gotten all my fall issues of my cooking magazines.  Lots of seasonal ingredients, lots of warm, cozy foods for the colder weather.  Only problem - once I finish cooking, I don't want to eat any of it.

I tried a "taste of autumn soup."  It involved roasted apples, carrots, parsnips and sweet potatoes and then blending them all into a bisque.  Sounds great right?  Only problem - I don't like sweet potatoes or parsnips.  Why would I want a soup that has those flavors?  I made a new variation on vegetarian chili.  But I really like the recipe I used last year for vegetarian chili and this one was much too spicy.  I don't know what I thinking when I picked out butternut squash panzanella.  I'm not a fan of butternut squash!  I hate all the effort in cutting and cooking it, not to mention it tastes like soap to me.

In my attempts to keep things interesting, I am forgetting the most basic fact - I am cooking a meal to eat.  Sure we need variety in our meals, and it is always a good idea to try new things.  But there is nothing wrong with sticking to a few familiar choices.  Familiar is not bad; comfort food is comforting because you know what to expect.  I don't need to try every exotic ingredient or fad flavor.  Concentrate on what we like and keep it nutritious.  Don't be afraid of new recipes but don't expect to get a new tongue.

Tonight?  Pasta and beans.  Everyone likes that.

O Canada - Happy Thanksgiving!

The second Monday in October may be Columbus Day to us, but in Canada, it is Thanksgiving.  From what I understand, Thanksgiving in Canada is a lot like Thanksgiving in the United States - get stuck in traffic, eat so much you feel sick and spend so much time with your family that you hate them.  The menu is even similar - turkey, pumpkin everything, au gratin as much as possible.

Other than maple syrup and Tim Horton's, I know nothing about Canadian food.  Is there even such a thing?  I am a big fan of the theme meal, so I thought I could make a little something Canadian for dinner yesterday.  I did some research.

And discovered poutine.

Never heard of it?  French fries, brown gravy and cheese curds.  To be good, the cheese curds have to squeak.  I am frightened by food that squeaks.  This is not the same things as cheese fries, not only because of the gravy, but because melty, shredded cheese is some sort of sacrilege to good poutine.

But then again, poutine sounds like some kind of sacrilege to good eating.

Supposedly, the saying goes that the best time to eat poutine is at 3:00 am, which I can understand.  It sounds like something that would taste delicious after a night of being out way too late.

I think I will stick to syrup and those doughnuts with the maple leaf shaped sprinkles.

You Say It's Your Birthday

My birthday is this week.  Growing up, we had a tradition.  The birthday girl got to choose either the dinner my mother would cook or the restaurant we would go to.  I have continued this tradition with my family.  Sarah and Matt love going out to eat, so for their birthdays we have fun dinners out.  I much prefer eating at home, but here is where this system breaks down.

I am the primary cook for the family, so I end up cooking my own birthday dinner.  I don't mind cooking dinner; I do it nearly every night.  But somehow cooking my own birthday dinner takes some of the charm out of the tradition.  Matt can cook and has cooked many a dinner, but his repertoire is all meat-based (meatballs, chili, ribs) and while all that stuff is delicious, it is not how I want to eat now.  On top of that, my birthday fell in the middle of the week.  Matt works crazy hours, so unless I wanted to eat at 10 pm, I was cooking dinner.

I made pancakes.  I decided it only made sense to continue one childhood tradition with another - breakfast for dinner!

Food Porn

I have a subscription to Entertainment Weekly (please don't judge).  I enjoy all the silly pop-culture news and reviews for movies I will never go see.  The only section I take seriously is the book review.  I may not get around to reading the books they write about for years, but I like knowing about the zeitgeist of the literary world.

In the October 10 issue, EW included a round-up of the latest and greatest cookbooks.  The article is entitled "Food Porn."  Food porn?  When did writing about and talking about and reading about and loving food become pornographic?  Why should food be associated with something sinful or dirty?

Okay, yes, I know all about the sin of gluttony.  And yes, there are lots of correlations to be made between food and sex.  Food can and should be a sensual experience.  But connecting that with porn undercuts the beauty of food and the wonderful emotional connections we have with it.  There is nothing pornographic about good food, prepared well and shared with the people we care about.  That is most wonderful and deep kind of relationship we can have.

But then again - "art house food" just isn't as catchy.

How 'Bout Them Apples

Fall, autumn, autumn, fall - a season so nice, they named it twice.  Everyone is all excited about pumpkin flavored things, but to me, the taste of fall will always be apple.

Is there any fruit more associated with myth and superstition?  The forbidden fruit, an apple for the teacher, an apple a day keeps the doctor away.  And is that new phone you bought named after a persimmon?

Growing up, apples meant red delicious, with an occasional golden thrown in.  Red delicious are fine, but they can get mealy (is that a real word?) and nothing feels worse in your mouth than biting into an apple and feeling like you are eating mushy sand.  I mostly eat gala apples now.  This season, I am trying to expand my horizons.  So far, I have sampled fuji and honeycrisp (both delicious, and by delicious I mean tastes good; they are nothing like red delicious.  Oh, you know what I mean).  I don't want to anything fancy.  I don't need to make a pie or cook up apple sauce.  I don't even want to cut it up.  Just give me a whole apple and a napkin and I'm good.

Want to know everything about apples?  Check out the U.S. Apple Association website.  Yes, there really is such a thing.

It's on Twitter - It Has to Be True

I came across this great map.  Researchers at the University of Arizona compiled Twitter hashtags and made a map of the most talked about foods by state.  I am not sure how researchers sorted through the hashtags, separating food from non-food.  In fact, I have a million questions about the methodology of this study.  (Nevermind the usefulness of it - don't these scientists have better things to study than food mentions on Twitter?)

Sure it is clever, a little parlor trick of social media research.  Does it tell us anything about our eating habits?  Or our conversations about food?  Well, a lot of people are tweeting about grits.  I am also fascinated by the pairs - Kansas and New York are talking about prunes, and Nevada and Wisconsin tweet a lot about sauerkraut.  What does it mean?  It doesn't mean anything!

I think I'll head to North Dakota; I could use a good flan.

University of Arizona food tweets

If It's Not Scottish...

It has been a big week in Scotland.  I have no dog in the independence fight, but I do have some very found memories of Scotland.  Over 25 years ago, my sister and I took a trip through the U.K. with a stop in Edinburgh.  I loved the energy of the city, my sister hated the place.  We did agree that it was tough to find a place to eat.

This was in the days before Yelp or TripAdvisor and at the time, Edinburgh was hardly a hot bed of progressive dining.  Mostly, you could get dinner at a bar.  For two little American girls, bars with signs like "No Football Colors Allowed" and "All Brawlers Will Be Arrested" did not whet our appetites.  We stumbled across a health food cafeteria (remember when it "health food?") and for three nights, went back to same place.  I ate macaroni and cheese every night because it was the only thing on the menu I recognized.  Dessert involved tea and Walker's shortbread.  Not exactly a true taste of Scotland.

I hope to go back.  Armed with more information and a more daring spirit, I think I could get a better idea of what Scottish food and culture is all about.  Take a look at this.  Makes you hungry, right?

Mainely Drizzle

Photo courtesy of Maine-ly Drizzle

I have yet to turn on the heat in the house, and it is not officially autumn yet, so I am still going to write about the summer.  Well, not the summer exactly, but things I did this summer.  Or more precisely, places I went this summer.  Well, place.  Oh you get the point.

While we were in Kennebunkport, Maine, we stumbled across the most amazing store - Mainely Drizzle.  Not only is it a shop for specialty olive oils and balsamic vinegars, it is a tasting room as well.  Have you ever heard of such a thing?  It is even better than it sounds.  The rooms is filled with olive oils and vinegars flavored with fruits and herbs.  There are little cups next to each urn and you are free to sip as many as you want.

Photo courtesy of Maine-ly Drizzle

Of course, if you are like me, you choke on the first sample and spend the rest of the visit coughing while the rest of the family enjoys taste after taste of these delicious treats.

Nick, the owner, cannot wait to show off his prizes.  He is from Somerville, Massachusetts, and clearly loves food, so he and Matt bonded immediately.  Nick asked my husband what kinds of flavors he liked and what his favorite foods are and then started bringing him all different mixtures of the vinegars and oils.  We did not need lunch after that stop.

We could not possibly bring home all the items we wanted, but not to worry!  We can order off the website.  (Seriously, check it out here.)  I'm waiting for my order of lime olive oil.  What am I going to use it for?  I don't know - everything!  Except sipping.  I learned my lesson about the sipping thing.

I Have a Nose for These Things

Yesterday, my refrigerator looked like this:

In other words, pretty sad.  No fruit, old wilty vegetables and a few eggs.  (And my pink pickles; can you see the jar on the bottom shelf?).  I needed to go grocery shopping.  I compiled some recipes, made a list, checked the circular for sale items, and then trudged off with my reusable grocery bags.  I was prepared for an ordinary, boring, like-always shopping trip.  

But I needed an eggplant.  Oh the magic of eggplant.  I found this:

The eggplant has a nose!  It is perfectly positioned below the stem so it looks like it is wearing a green hat above its giant nose.  It is so darn cute.  So cute in fact that now I can't bear to cook it.  I can't cut off my eggplant's nose!  What kind of cruel monster do you think I am?  I guess I am going to have to wait until the thing rots in m refrigerator and its nose falls off.  But then again, who wants to eat a rotten eggplant?  And why should this eggplant just waste away?  It was brought into this world to make my roasted vegetables into a delicious, satisfying meal.

But I don't think I can't cut off its nose, now that I started referring to it as a nose.

I'll make Matt cut the eggplant.  He has no mercy toward vegetable noses.

Back to Life, Back to Reality

Back to school time, which means back to packing lunch.  What is it about putting the lunch into the lunch box that makes it so much harder?  Sarah does not have a hard time picking what she wants when she eats at home.  But somehow having to put the food into containers complicates matters.

She is not a fan if the hot lunch options at her school (I can't blame her).  She also is not a fan of sandwiches.  According to Sarah, sandwiches require too much chewing.  Chewing is a problem when you can't stop talking, but that is another story.  Okay, no sandwiches.  The good news is that she is a big fan of leftovers in a thermos - soups, stews, pasta.  I like cooking those things so it worked out pretty well last year.  It is much easier to just reheat last night's dinner than remember to buy sandwich things every week, so in the end it is better for both of us.  So far this school year, I have sent in a few of days of pasta, a few of soups and only one sandwich.

Sarah tells me her friends are jealous of her lunches.  Why does that make me feel good?

Sarah is getting older and before long I will not be packing lunches for her anymore.  I will have no control over what she eats when she is away from home.  I hope I have helped her develop some good habits about what she chooses to eat at lunch.  I think I have, as long as it does not involve a lot of chewing.

There's a Word for That

German is a great language.  It has given us such wonderful words as kindergarten, schadenfreude, and, my new favorite kummerspeck.  What does it mean?  Well, according to the book Lost in Translation by Ella Frances Sanders, it "refers to the excess weight we gain from emotional overeating."  The literal translation is even better: "grief-bacon."

I certainly have my own share of kummerspeck, even if there has never been any bacon involved.  Even before I stopped eating meat, I never cared much for bacon.  But grief bacon?  That sounds rather tasty.