Cooking is Back!

I haven't cooked in ages. Which is sad, because I pride myself on being a fairly decent home cook. I don't think I've actually cooked anything in over a month. Pathetic. But I was actually home alone this Saturday night, so I decided to go for it.

Here's the article that finally got me cooking again. The Nigella Lawson recipe particularly appealed to me since I love Moroccan spices.

Root Vegetable Couscous

3 T olive oil
2 med. onions, quartered & sliced thickly
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 t each ground cinnamon, cumin & coriander
1/2 t paprika
generous pinch of saffron (if you have it around)
3 med. carrots, peeled & cut into a 1 inch dice
2 med. parsnips, peeled & cut into 1 inch dice
2 medium turnips, peeled & cut into a 1 inch dice
1 small kabocha or butternut squash, peeled & cut into a 1 inch dice
1/2 med. rutabaga, peeled & cut into a 1 inch dice
3 zucchini sliced 1/2 inch thick (you can peel if you like)
4 1/2 cut chicken, beef or vegetable stock
1/2 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes with liquid
2/3 c sultanas
1 1/2 c (14 oz each) chickpeas
salt
few drops chili oil or 1 t harissa if you have it

1/2 c pine nuts
4 c quick-cooking couscous
2 T butter

1. Heat the olive oil in a big, deep pot & turn the onions in it for a few minutes.

2. Add the garlic, cinnamon, cumin, coriander, paprika and saffron, and stir over low to medium heat for 5 minutes.

3. Add the carrots, parsnips, turnips, squash, rutabaga and zucchini and turn briskly.

4.After about 5 minutes add the stock, tomatoes, orange zest, sultanas and chickpeas. Turn again & try to get everything at least partially covered by the stock. Add more stock or water if needed. Season with salt.

5. Cook for 20-30 minutes, until the vegetables are tender but not mushy (at least not all of them - some will be beginning to fray around the edges, and that is good) and the liquid has formed a thin but not watery sauce.

6.Taste and add chili oil or the harissa if you want it to have more punch. Serve with couscous, pine nuts.




I doctored it up quite a bit. Trader Joe's had a pre-cut medley of squash, turnips and yams, so I just used that plus a couple carrots and turnips. I attempted to buy parsnips, but was in a hurry and accidentally ended up with daikon. Oops. They'll make a tasty snack tomorrow, I guess!



I couldn't get the effing tin of paprika open (seriously, you need like tin snips to get in that thing) so I used a pinch of cayenne to add heat. Plus Melinda's XX hot sauce instead of harissa. I skipped the pine nuts, I was going to use almonds instead but totally forgot and didn't miss them at all.

Do you know what sultanas are? Me either, until this recipe. They're just white grapes, easy-peasy. British people use such fancy words! Aubergines, brown sauce, etc. I happened to be watching Jacques Pepin today, and he referred to golden raisins as sultanas, so I used raisins instead of actual grapes. We may never know Nigella's actual intended ingredient, but it turned out just fine.

And one last swap, I used Israeli couscous instead of regular, the box had been been sitting lonely and unused in the pantry for months. It's bigger than regular couscous and I love the texture. Think round orzo.



I'm so glad I finally washed some dishes and cooked something. It reminded me of what I love about cooking: being creative with a recipe, that sense of accomplishment when you ladle up your dinner and of course a delicious meal.

Co-sleeping isn't evil

This recent article about a "co-sleeping" infant death in Milwaukee got me really riled up.

Unsafe sleep practice suspected in baby death

I put co-sleeping in quotation marks because co-sleeping was not the cause of the death. An unsafe environment and a drunk parent caused the death. From the article:

"Prescott told police she had gone to a party and gotten drunk Saturday night. She did not remember when she picked up the children or even coming home. She told police it was possible she slept on the couch with the two children."

That's not co-sleeping. That's negligence.

Co-sleeping is defined as infant and guardian sleeping in the same room and I think most proponents these days would not recommend sharing a bed. I was raised in a co-sleeping household. While I certainly understand that it's not for everyone, it definitely has some benefits. I don't get why people put such and emphasis on putting their baby in a separate room. What's the point? I learned to sleep through my father's robust snoring, and that ability has served me well in my adulthood.

I don't want to do everything like my parents did (thanks for the non-weening that turned into an oral fixation, Mom). But they did a rocking job raising two happy, healthy daughters, and I know that of the many things I do want to replicate as a future parent, one of them is co-sleeping. There's definitely a stigma attached to it, and I'm pissed that I've been made to feel ashamed of my upbringing and my intended parenting style.

So, Journal Sentinel, thanks for perpetrating the stereotype that co-sleeping is unsafe, you've managed to vilify something completely natural and benign. Great work.

Plays well with stouts

I've been cooking less often than usual, but what does get made has been pretty tasty, if I do say so myself. Now's the time of year for hearty comfort food, which I usually don't feel like taking the time to make. Here's the last few months of standout cooking.

For Thanksgiving I was planning some fancy pies, but when a six-year-old requests a classic pumpkin you can't say no. So I made pumpkin and pecan. Lucky for me I married a man who loves to make pie crust, so he did the heavy lifting.



A while back I made Sunday pot roast. I didn't get the chance to take a picture of the final product, but here's the meat looking all delicious:



And here are the other ingredients:


Notice the Founder's Breakfast Stout, an inspired suggestion from my beer- and meat-loving brother-in-law. The roast turned out so well Jim gave me permission to make it again, which is really something since he usually despises hunks of meat like this.

And finally, tonight we had $5 foot-longs from Subway, which is not the most satisfying dinner in all the land. So I did a mental inventory of our cupboard and realized we had all the fixins for bread pudding. Here is the rough recipe:

2 cups milk
hunk of butter
3 eggs
2/3 cup brown sugar
vanilla
cinnamon
nutmeg
3 cups of torn up pieces of French bread

Heat up the milk and butter until sightly warm and the butter is melted. Whisk in the eggs, sugar and seasonings. Pour over the bread pieces in an 8x8 buttered pan. Sprinkle in some pecans and chocolate chips. Bake for 45 minutes. Eat that shit!

See, I clearly got the last bit of the instructions right:

The Art of Oatmeal

Check out these great oatmeal faces. I only wish they weren't photoshopped.

When I was little, my mom used to make us "Surprise Faces." Basically just snacky foods arranged to look like faces on a plate. There are few things more thrilling for a six year old than realizing that an orange slice can be transformed into a smile, or raisins into eyebrows.

At some point my mother's food art became less appealing to me, at the time I thought she had run out of ideas. Grapes halves as eyes again? But really I think I just got too old to appreciate it anymore.

In which I attempt assent to Maslow's next level.

Well, that's unfair, really. I mean, I have a place to stay. So shelter is sort of covered. But really, home ownership would fall under the category of Self-actualization if you ask me. I mean, then I know I've arrived.

I've looked at countless houses online, 12 in person. We've got an offer in at one house that is like, for real, dude, totally sweet. I must devolve my language skills to convey how awesome this house is. It should be totally out of our price range. But it isn't. So we went for it. 

But somebody else went for it first. This is like dating, or job hunting. You get yourself all worked up, talk yourself into it, and then it turns out something completely out of your control (like having no real job skills or not enough money) has kept you from realizing your dreams. 

We haven't given up hope quite yet on the Perfect House. But we're going to continue to look at less perfect houses in the meantime.

Also, if one more person tells me it's a "buyer's market" I will spit. It's a buyer's market for houses that nobody actually wants.

Spider Cake

Every Halloween, my agency has a scary dessert contest. Last year I did a gingerbread man graveyard massacre. Inspired by this pumpkin patch bloodbath.

Well, I wanted to up the ante this year, so after some searching online I came up with doing a spider cake. Her legs are pirouettes glued together with frosting. Her body is a bundt cake and her head is carved from a couple eight inch round cakes. Eyes are marshmallows and mini chocolate chips. And the best part? There are guts! She was filled with whipped cream and raspberry coulis.

As you can see, she was gored by the hungry mob. I didn't win the baking contest, but I'm always satisfied when my creations are devoured.

Obama Wins Wisconsin!

I'd like to think my canvassing has a little bit to do with Obama's win in WI, but then I'd be lying to myself. Maybe I helped one or two people get to the polls, but in all honesty I felt that I was mostly just bugging folks. I know that I kept myself from gnawing off my remote control hand, that's for sure. I would have been jumping out of my skin if I'd stayed home.

Most of the reason I went out to canvass and wave signs was to absolve myself of guilt. Guilt about being a talker and not a doer. Guilt about pledging money and not actually writing the check. Guilt about not donating my time earlier. Because if you get up at 5 AM on election day, that totally makes up for weeks of laziness, right? Right?!