pasta, pasta!

Obviously certain foods are always associated with certain times of the year. For me, having pumpkin pie in the middle of the summer would just be weird. Just like hot dogs in November make no sense at all. What I find more odd is that I associate certain foods with certain people.

Take for example the two girls I lived with in college. I will never be able to have carrot cake or tomatoes without thinking of Tamara. The carrot cake because her mom had the best recipe ever and the tomatoes mainly because of her hatred of them and disgust when I would leave half of a tomato out on the counter because I refused to put tomatoes in the frig. Come on though, cold tomatoes are gross.

Same goes for Sarah with couscous and pasta salad. Once, when we were probably 21 or 22, Sarah had to make a pasta salad for some sort of pot luck function. I can't possibly fathom what sort of pot luck this girl was attending. She wasn't exactly the pot luck type, nor were we really living in a pot luck town, but nonetheless, Sarah needed to make pasta salad. I remember it being quite good and at the time none of us were cooking all that often, so it was nice to have the extra food around. (I am just now wondering why I was eating this stuff if she had to take it somewhere. My bad, Sarah.)

Anyway, she bought this special pasta salad seasoning stuff by McCormick. It was just a salad seasoning blend that literally said "great for pasta salads!" on the front. Obviously hours of research went into this.

In the several years and several moves that have transpired since then, I have somehow inherited this seasoning and found it in my kitchen cabinet last weekend. 5 moves, 4 states, and a marriage later, and I still have that stupid salad seasoning. Since I am obviously of the school of thought that seasonings never go bad, and I miss my friends, I decided it was time to make some pasta salad.

This isn't rocket science and you certainly don't need to follow a recipe precisely to make it turn out well, but this is what I did.

1 12 oz box of tri colored rotini

1/2 c. roasted red peppers, diced (I used the kind in the jar. I'm classy like that)

3/4 c. grated asiago cheese

1/2 of a medium cucumber, diced

1/8 c. diced leeks

1 carrot, finely diced

3 tbs. McCormick's salad seasoning (because it's 'great on pasta salad!')

1/2 c. Italian dressing

sea salt and black pepper to taste

Cook the pasta, drain it, then throw everything together in a bowl. It saves well and makes for a great brown bag lunch the next day.

I buy the Italian dressing mixes that you add vinegar and oil and shake. I'm working on my dressings, but they still have a long way to go. Tim always looks a little worried when I announce that I made the dressing -- and I can't say I blame him.

Would you like granola with that?

Granola as one of those things I didn't really give much thought to for many years. It looked kind of gross at a glance, was never kept in the house growing up, and I always made the assumption that you had to be somewhat of a dirty hippie to enjoy it. The fact that we referred to said dirty hippies as 'granolas' probably didn't help it's cause. Oh to be young and uninformed...

I think my first actual enjoyable encounter with granola was of all places...the culinary mecca that is McDonald's. For reasons I still can't totally comprehend, I signed up for a part time job there my senior year. Probably because I needed some college cash and in my microscopic home town, there were about 3 options for part-time employment; and I don't think my parents would have been thrilled with me working the graveyard shift at Sheetz.

The stories from the 8 months I spent working there are ridiculous, hilarious, sad, and sometimes even unbelievable and could really be the topic of a totally separate and unrelated blog.

Working in fast food is certainly something I will never forget, and even beneficial in the greater sense of being a better human being, but I'm even more glad it was short-lived. I literally did cartwheels to my car through the parking lot the last night before I left for college.

One story that comes to mind was an evening that I decided be helpful and change the ketchup bag in the back that needed to be inserted to a dispenser on the wall. I had no idea what I was doing. Zero.

This thing was somewhere between 3-4 gallons and while I was pretty scrappy back then, a 4 gallon bag of ketchup isn't exactly light. Somewhere during this process, I apparently poked a hole in the bag. Through a series of cloudy events that occurred in what had to be less than 60 seconds, somehow the bag was punctured, the cap over the pour spout had come off and there was ketchup squirting all over me like some sort of fast-food geyser. As you may or may not know, ketchup is also very slippery. Before long I was sprawled out on the floor rolling around in a pool of ketchup unable to stand up, all the while the bag still squiring. Others tried to help, but they too just ended up falling down in the floor. The whole thing was very 3 Stooges. It's amazing we all didn't end up in the ER with worker's comp injuries. Although I think this was after our ER started closing at 10 p.m. Maybe that's why we didn't go. Another reason we were all very fortunate that another co-worker managed to catch himself right before he went headlong into a deep fryer one night before we closed.

Anyway, after evenings like this (and there were many), if there were any of those fun fruit and yogurt parfaits that were going to expire before the next day, I would help myself. I have always been a big fan of yogurt and the extra crunch of granola was a welcomed one. So much so, that I now make my own. Eating it is still soothing, even if I don't smell like a walking Heinz factory or have a job that requires I dip myself in de-greaser nightly.

Granola has a ton of flexibility, but this is one of the recipes that I've found to be most successful.

3 c. Old Fashioned Oats

3/4 c. Honey

1/4 c. Wheat Flour

1 tbs. Cinnamon

1 tsp. Ginger

1 tsp. Nutmeg

2 tbs. Fresh Orange Juice

2 tsp. Orange Zest

1 tbs. Vanilla Extract

2 tsp. Canola Oil

Mix the old fashioned oats, wheat flour, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg in a bowl. Mix the honey, vanilla, orange juice, orange zest and canola oil in a separate bowl until combined and pour into dry ingredients. Mix until the liquid is absorbed and distributed and spread out to bake on a cookie sheet. Cook at 250 degrees for around an hour. Cool it on the pan and store in an airtight container. My favorite way to eat it is still on vanilla yogurt with fruit, but this also works as a cereal or even on ice cream.

Even if you don't like granola, if you like the house to smell good, this is a good way to do it. There's something about the smell cinnamon and orange juice. The people at Glade should really look into it.

In the wee small hours of the morning

I love mornings. Well, I love mornings that don't involve me having to put forward a half-hearted attempt to get to work on time. Mornings that involve me waking up when it is actually light outside are a sure sign that the day has endless potential. Unless I've overslept. Then that's no fun at all.

Even though I love waking up without an alarm, I'm still an early bird. Always have been. There's something extra special about being the first one up in the house and enjoying the quiet without having to really think about the day's plan. At least not quite yet, anyway.

More specifically, I really, really enjoy mornings that involve French toast. This would probably qualify as my all time favorite homemade breakfast; for this week at least. I don't think I've ever ordered it in a restaurant. It couldn't possibly be as good.

Until recently, my French toast was fine. Nothing spectacular, but I enjoyed it more for the nostalgic factor. As a kid, any morning I could talk either of my parents into French toast was an accomplishment. I remember a few mornings when mom wasn't home and I talked my Dad into making it for me. He always was easy to persuade, particularly about harmless things, like good breakfast. Mom was my go-to for pancakes, but Dad was for French toast.

The one downside to my personal attempts was that it always turned into a soggy mess. Without a thought, I would pan fry it in butter. (I love butter, how could this ever be a bad thing?) I just recently, per an unrelated recipe, got the idea to try it in oil. Ohhhh my. You should get out of bed early this weekend and try it yourself. Even if you don't have an obsession with schedule-free mornings like I do.

The photo really doesn't do it any justice, but it was crispy, yet moist, rich in flavor but still light enough that you don't have to spend the next 2 hours sleeping it off on the couch. Unless you really want to.

I promise, I'm really working on the photography thing, but this week I'm going to blame it on the fact that I was being impatient because I wanted to get breakfast upstairs to a sleeping Tim while it was still hot. I make up for my poor photography skills by being an awesome wife.

These are the quantities I made this weekend. It was entirely too much for two. I would say this much batter would feed four, easily. Also, I'm not sure who came up with that silly little statement about something being 'the best thing since sliced bread' because well, sliced bread isn't good. Do yourself a favor and don't use it for this, or anything else for that matter.

3 eggs, beaten

1 c. milk

2 tsp. cinnamon

2 tsp. nutmeg (You can ease up on the nutmeg if you would like. I just happen to love it)

1.5 tsp. vanilla extract

2 tbs. granulated sugar

1 tsp. salt

3 tbs flavorless oil (canola, vegetable, etc) for frying

12 pieces of bread (approximately)

Mix all batter ingredients (eggs through salt) in a wide shallow dish. Heat the oil in a pan until it is hot enough to cause a sizzle if you put anything in it. Dip the bread in the batter and allow to drain for a few seconds before placing in the skillet. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes, or until golden brown. Flip and repeat. Serve with maple syrup or any other fun topping you can come up with (fresh fruit, maple butter, jam, etc).

Dinner = FAIL

So, I made spaghetti squash. It was fun and different and looked pretty cute in the bowl.

It was also bland, boring, and had a strange texture. I paired it with a questionable vinagerette, which didn't help the situation. I like low starch meals as much as the next person, but I would rather eat an entire plate of cabbage and eggs for dinner than deal with that stuff again. I guess that's not saying much considering I like both cabbage and eggs (combined even), but you get the idea.

I didn't always love cabbage. Actually, I thought it was fairly gross most of my childhood. I think it was more because of the smell than anything. Well, that and the fact that I think my mom planted at least 45 heads each summer and we would eat it for 4 weeks straight every August. I exaggerate, but not as much as you would think.

The smell would linger in the house for 24 hours and smelled like a combination of dirty hobo and feet when it was boiled. Lingering odor also contributed to my hatred of ramps.

I have a sensitive nose; it creates problems. I'm also overly dramatic about smells.

Since this blog has a lot to do with eating and food, I'll save my more colorful smell stories for another time and place.

Once I was out on my own and buying my own groceries, I started to realize how cheap cabbage really is. Due to my great love of bargains and fresh produce, I had to give it another try. After all, I love cole slaw, so how bad can it be?

Turns out I love fried cabbage and there's all sorts of fun things you can do with it. Add some jalapeno peppers, some bacon? Braise it with some cider? It's good stuff. It also soaks up spice really easily. Considering I went through a phase that involved me putting cayenne pepper on nearly everything I cooked, this is an added bonus for me. It's not exactly fancy dinner material, but it's hearty enough to replace a starch, which is also nice.

This photo isn't going to win any prizes, but it's simple to make and really quite good.

Actually, none of my photos are going to win any prizes. Any and all donations that will go toward me taking a photography class that will enable me to stop embarrassing myself on this site are appreciated.

avoidance by baking

I had high hopes for Sunday, I really did. Maybe some homemade pasta noodles? Maybe make a ham...but well, it didn't happen. This is mostly because 2 things consumed the weekend. The first was a trip to Charleston (!!) and the other was much less fun. Leaky pipes in the ceiling. ugh.

Early Sunday was consumed by me rocking back and forth on the couch in the fetal position trying to pretend there wasn't a problem. Once Tim has sliced the hole in the ceiling and created a mini fountain over the fireplace we were fairly committed. We spent the next several hours cleaning up drywall gunk and going back and forth to Lowes. Mind you, neither of us had showered and we were both covered in ceiling mess. People have looked better coming off all-night benders. It was ugly.

Anyway, at one point during the pipe surgery, I was done with home improvement land and decided it was time to bake banana bread. When the going gets tough, the tough...bake banana bread?

I assume Tim was much more grateful for my banana bread than for my sarcastic comments about calling the landlord and why being a grown-up was highly overrated. However, handy boys are extremely underrated. I can only imagine if I had been home alone during this little adventure. I figure the entire wall would have been ripped down in a fit of panic and diapers would be wrapped around the pipe with the leak (I struggle to not take action, even when it does more harm than good). I also have a strange fear of household mold, but that's another topic.

I like how calling a plumber never entered my mind. weird.

So, one good thing about today was the banana bread. It's easy, not overly sweet, has a great flavor, and freezes very well. I have lately taken to placing the baked goods I make in the freezer. Apparently I've convinced myself that they contain fewer calories when frozen.

I got the original recipe for this banana bread from the Orangette blog. I love her blog (and book), and I've never had one of her recipes turn out poorly. While I've made a few changes, for the most part it's the same recipe.

And while we're on the subject of bananas, this is my favorite internet video of all time.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9jry_i-am-a-banana-full-clip

Now that you're moderately disturbed that you know me, here's the recipe.

1.5 cups of pureed banana (I wait till they turn dark and then freeze them so they're always handy)
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
Pinch of salt
1 stick unsalted butter softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 tsp distilled white vinegar
1 ½ Tbsp. dark rum
½ cup shredded coconut
2 1/2 Tbsp. demerara or dark brown sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter a standard-size loaf pan.

In a blender or food processor, purée the bananas. Measure out 1 ½ cups of purée & set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, nutmeg, and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl (I use a stand mixer), beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the vinegar and rum, and beat to mix well. Add the banana purée and the flour mixture alternately, about 1 cup at a time, beginning with the banana and beating to just incorporate. Add in the coconut with a spatula.

Scrape the batter – it will be thick – into the prepared pan. Smooth the top, and sprinkle evenly with the demerara sugar. Bake for 60-70 minutes, or until the top is nicely browned and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool on a wire rack for about 20 minutes; then turn the loaf out of the pan and allow it to cool completely.

I have no photos of the bread and I don't think anyone reading this really wants or needs a photo of the hole in our ceiling. I'll do better next time. Promise.