Ruthless

There was a time, early in our marriage, when we subsisted on no more than a handful of meals. The Carnivore specialized in spaghetti and quesadillas. My repertoire included bean & rice burritos and baked macaroni and cheese. When we were feeling really decadent, The Carnivore might whip up a mean gumbo or a vegetarian chili, but for the most part, we had a short, easy-to-memorize grocery list and an even shorter menu from which we picked our meals. It suited us. At the time, we had other things on our mind and often we forgot to even eat dinner.

Our dismally slim cookbook collection consisted of the annual Southern Living hardbacks that my mother picked up for us at yard sales, and one or two of them had sticky notes flailing out of the top to denote a recipe or two that The Carnivore, who was by and large the family chef, had attempted with good success. And I had a tiny little single-pocket manila folder that held the four or five recipes I had clipped from magazines or newspapers. It was kind of sad really, now that I'm looking back on it.

When we first moved into our dream house, six weeks after The Big Boy was born, and I began to get used to my new role as more-mom-than-businesswoman, I started testing the waters as the head chef in the family. The Carnivore had designed and built a spectacular kitchen, with appliances that were smarter than me and a floor plan that had the living room and kitchen completely open to one another. The space is vast, airy, and colorful, with high ceilings, stained glass windows and a big bay window, hardwood floors, and even a fireplace. Really, it would have been hard to NOT get obsessed with cooking.

I began to madly clip new recipes, eager to expand our rather boring and completely uninspiring meal rotation, and over time, my folder of recipes started to bulge and split its seams; there were so many that I would often forget what was in there and would have to pull every single piece of paper out in order to find anything. And since we had started with such a limited set of meals, we were voting nearly all new recipes to be keepers. So, in true obsessive-compulsive fashion, I finally spent a weekend organizing all of the recipes into a binder. I made copies of each recipe on a single sheet of paper so I wouldn’t be stuck with all the scraps of paper, and I categorized all of them, even going so far as to provide an index for each category. I know, it’s a little sick, isn't it? I can’t help it. I blame my father. He’s the same way.

Recently though, I realized the binder had gotten out of control. There are maybe 150 or so recipes in there now, and our standards have changed drastically in the past four years. Whereas before, any old edible pasta dish would easily earn its place in the book, we recognize now that in those days, we were just trying to avoid starvation. I mean, the first pasta salad recipe that moved into the book is truly a very middle-of-the-road, pedestrian kind of dish that I clipped from the newspaper. I will probably never make it again now that I have added the Pasta Salad with Corn and Spinach that we fell in love with from Fine Cooking.

It’s clearly time to do some culling. We’re just a lot pickier than we used to be. And I don’t want to waste valuable real estate in The Book with white-bread fare, if you know what I mean. So we’ve gotten ruthless. Unless we get overly frustrated with the process, we’re not having any new recipes for a few weeks until we have gone back and eaten our way through some of the pages that we haven’t even turned to in recent memory. Last night, I made a goat cheese and sun-dried tomato pasta dish that we only ate once, maybe a year ago, and neither of us could even remember much about it, much less why we had decided to add it to our permanent cache. This time, we each had no more than a couple of bites before we put our food critic hats on and began to nit-pick the dish into oblivion. It just wasn’t earth-shatteringly tasty. And it didn’t pull our heartstrings or comfort us or excite even a single taste bud. I wish I had a buzzer on the kitchen table. Or a gong. At some point, we obviously felt this dish was an important addition to our menu book, but neither of us were particularly moved by it any longer.

So I marched to The Book, unceremoniously yanked the page out and escorted it straight to the recycling bin, scribbling over it’s entry in the index. Call me ruthless. I just love the sound of it.

Oh, it isn’t like we’ll run out of recipes. We can afford to be remorseless about this process. I mean, I’m threading my way amongt bookshelves that are groaning under the weight of cookbooks, I subscribe to a slew of cooking magazines (though that amount could rise at a moment’s notice), and the internet is a resource to be reckoned with here. Almost every day I print out a new recipe that I want to try from one of the food blogs (see sidebar at right) that I regularly follow.

The only issue we’re running into is when we disagree over a recipe’s rightful home in The Book. A couple of nights ago, I made a spinach, goat cheese & chive quiche that I truly enjoy (my sister-in-law showed up with a sizeable block of goat cheese last weekend so we’ve been on kind of a goat cheese kick around these parts lately). Though The Carnivore and I are usually on the same page with recipes – with the obvious exception of, um, meat – we butted heads on this one. In the interest of making meals that we are all happy with though, and since this is a rare occasion to begin with, I reluctantly recycled the recipe and took the leftovers to mom’s house. I’m still feeling a little sadness over this, like it’s a puppy my parents won’t let me keep and I need to find a good home for it.

I am a giant fan of eggy main dishes anyway, and The Carnivore most certainly is NOT. Quiches and frittatas are such beautiful vegetarian entrees, and can be loaded with all manner of seasonal veggies and herbs, and since goat cheese can even be found relatively locally here, well, I’m just downright downcast to see this recipe move on to a more agreeable audience than it found in my kitchen.

So here it is, free to a good home. Please take good care of it for me. I will miss it terribly.

SPINACH, GOAT CHEESE & CHIVE QUICHE (adapted from Fine Cooking, serves 4 as an entree, or 6 as a side dish)

• 10 oz fresh spinach
• 2 large eggs
• 2 large egg yolks
• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
• Salt & freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup crumbled goat cheese
• 2 to 3 Tbs finely snipped fresh chives
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1/3 cup freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano
• 1 partially baked tart shell (or pie dough or even puff pastry - whatever you like)

1. In a large saucepan, bring 1 cup water to a boil.
2. Add spinach to boiling water and cook until just wilted (2 to 3 minutes).
3. Drain spinach and set aside to cool.
4. In a bowl, combine the eggs, yolks and heavy cream. Season w/ salt & pepper and whisk until well blended.
5. Add the goat cheese, chives, thyme and Parmigiano to the egg mixture.
6. Squeeze excess moisture from spinach; and mince.
7. Add spinach to egg mixture and mix well.
8. Pour mixture into prepared, partially baked tart shell.
9. Put tart shell onto a baking pan (because it will overflow and make a terrible mess of your stove) and bake at 375 degrees until the filling is puffed and brown (about 50 minutes) and interior no longer runs all over the place when poked with a knife.

Nerd (recipe for Leek and Asparagus Frittata)

This cooking hobby is getting expensive. Well, maybe that is too strong a statement. We have to eat, after all, so I suppose if I had to pick anything for a hobby, cooking is certainly the most useful. And since we would have to buy food no matter what, then I can even kind of cheat and consider that not all of the money I spend on this little venture really goes to the hobby itself. Maybe I should come up with some sort of formula by which I take all the money spent on groceries and cooking magazine subscriptions and the cookbooks I’m trying real hard not to buy, and then allocate a specific portion under the heading of ‘hobby’ and funnel the rest to the ‘groceries’ line item on my budget.

It's the accounting degree talking here. You know how you’ve heard all this talk for the past five or ten years about misstated financial statements and important documents being shredded and, you know, Enron. I bet those problems started just like this, with the accountant making twisted justifications about expenses.

Even though I tend to pinch my pennies until they bleed and cry out for mercy, and I bargain shop and try to get the most bang for each buck, I’m pretty reckless when it comes to the food portion of the budget. Because honestly, we DO have to eat. And if I’m going to have to cook every single doggone day for the rest of my dadgum life, then by golly, I’m going to get good at it and I’m going to like doing it. So I buy expensive cheese without even checking the price tag. And we’ve joined a CSA and shell out a pretty sizeable check to the farm at the beginning of the season. And I spend twice as much on organic produce and dairy products without batting an eye, and I go to the weekend farmer’s markets and pay a premium to both support local farmers and to know that my vegetables were grown just a couple of miles down the road and were picked that morning.

So it is what it is. When cash flow gets tight, I do not try to trim our grocery budget. We can cut corners in everything else, but not with our food. I track all of our expenses – even to the point of grumbling at The Carnivore about the $20 in cash he takes out of the ATM once a month or so (it must be hard being married to me), because then I’m unable to allocate that money on the spreadsheet. So it shouldn’t come as any surprise to me at the end of the year, when I print out the annual income and expense detail reports for us to go over as a family, that we spent an exorbitant amount of money on groceries. I’m the one who does the shopping. I know what is spent each week, and I can do the multiplication in my head fairly easily.

But it was still a shock. I printed out the 2007 report and read through it line by line so that I could pat myself on the back for, you know, barely spending a dime on clothing, for ponying up hardly a pittance on dining out, for paying off the vehicles this past year. And then I got down to the grocery section.

Oops. My bad.

Even The Carnivore, who leaves the financial stuff completely up to me, and who has never complained about the decisions I’ve made about our money was brought up short in his tracks when he got to that line.

Clearly, I was going to have to put things into perspective.

I'd recently read The Amateur Gourmet, a witty and delighfully un-elitist guide for aspiring foodies written by Adam Roberts, a food blogger I adore, and I remembered a Ruth Reichl quote from the book about food costs: “Food isn’t cheap. People used to spend half their income on food. Now they spend six percent.” The quote confused me the first time I read it, and it’s still picking at me. If, like she says, food isn’t cheap, then how is it that people are spending so much less on food than they used to? Obviously, due to the industrialization of agriculture, food has gotten much cheaper over the past 50 years, but that is only if you’re talking about buying straight off the supermarket shelf, rather than buying organic or local. And is she talking about groceries, or is she including the cost of eating out? Because I could swear I’ve read some staggering statistics on how many meals are eaten outside of the home now…

So I gave up and commenced Googling. According to a USDA Economic Research Service report, Americans spent 9.5% of their income on food in 2004. From what I read in another USDA report (which included numbers from 1997, which were obviously slightly different), it looks like the numbers used by the USDA in these reports do include both groceries and restaurant meals, and the income amount they use is after-tax income.

I’m such a nerd. OF COURSE I grabbed my adding machine. And OF COURSE I ran the numbers. Now, we’re self-employed, so we lose a higher percentage of our income to taxes due to there not being an employer to pay half of our FICA, and I’m still procrastinating on preparing our income tax return for last year, so I can only go on the amount that I paid with our quarterly estimates, which should be relatively close (due to nerdism). From what I came up with, it looks like we (argh – I suppose ‘I’ is the operative pronoun here) spent approximately 13% of our estimated after-tax income on food. And no, that doesn’t include the money spent on new cooking gadgets or the afore-mentioned cooking magazines, etc.

I was really hoping we’d be closer to the curve here. Then I wouldn’t have to spend the rest of the day trying to come up with excuses, especially when I have some cooking projects I really want to work on. For quite some time now, I’ve justified our high grocery expenses with assuming we were still spending less than those people who ate out all the time – and I do hate having to admit that I was running on mistaken assumptions there. And I’m sure my mom (bless her) will read this and still find a way to help me devise further justifications – because, you know, I don’t have car payments, so maybe I SHOULD be able to spend more on food…

Or maybe I should just admit I have a problem.

Exhibit One: the following leek and asparagus frittata recipe which has become one of my new favorite vegetarian entrees.

We gushed over this recipe and have fallen back in love with frittatas again. The Parmesan crust adds fabulous texture and delicous sharp, salty flavor. The asparagus is cooked until barely tender, and the sauteed buttery leeks are rich and delicate. Even The Carnivore considers this fritatta worthy of entree status, always my biggest goal when serving meatless proteins to a beef-loving man. And The Big Boy ate a few bites of it himself before he lost interest and wandered off to have an imaginary sword fight. I love it too (the frittata, that is), and will be making it for dinner again tonight, along with Spicy Couscous with Chickpeas and a mixed green salad.

But, more to the point, I shudder to think of the actual cost of this dish. I use free-range eggs ($2 worth in this recipe) and fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano (there goes another $2 - $3). The cup of Fontina cheese adds another $3-$4, and I'd just rather not dwell on the cost of organic asparagus, mushrooms and leeks. And, oh, I almost hate to admit this, but I even buy organic butter now. It's all so mind-boggling. I mean, SURE, I could scrimp on the quality of ingredients and use eggs from abused chickens. And I could get my Parmesan from a can. Instead of Fontina, I could use mass-market mozzarella. But then I'd be sacrificing on taste, and what would be the point of cooking at all?

LEEK AND ASPARAGUS FRITTATA (adapted from Bon Appetit, 4 main-dish servings)

• 2 Tbs butter
• 1 cup chopped leeks (white and pale green parts only)
• 12-oz asparagus, trimmed, cut on diagonal into 1-inch pieces
• 1 cup chopped mushrooms
• 8 eggs
• 1 cup shredded Fontina cheese, divided
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt, plus a pinch more
• 1/2 tsp finely ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1. Preheat broiler.
2. Melt butter in heavy oven-proof skillet over medium heat.
3. Add leeks to pan, and saute for 4 minutes.
4. Add asparagus and mushrooms to leeks, sprinkle slightly with pinch of salt, and saute until asparagus is just tender, about 6 minutes.
5. Whisk eggs, 3/4 cup Fontina cheese, 1/2 tsp salt, and 1/2 tsp pepper in medium bowl.
6. Add egg mixture to skillet; fold gently to combine.
7. Cook until almost set, and top is only slightly runny, about 3 -5 minutes.
8. Sprinkle remaining Fontina cheese, and Parmesan cheese over the top.
9. Put skillet in oven and broil until frittata is puffed and cheese has turned golden, about 3 minutes.

Macadamia Double-Decker Brownie Bars

Oh, my stars. I’ve been dying to get a chance to blog for the past few days. I wanted to tell you all about the cauliflower recipe that I tried from the February issue of Bon Appetit. It is just the most divine side dish in the world and I want so badly to share it with you. But you know how it goes. I’ve had work to do all week, and two clients kind of breathing down my neck about it all. Even getting the work done was practically an exercise in futility though because Little Miss Piggy isn’t much for napping, which really gets in the way of getting, you know, ANYTHING done.

So, of course, writing took a backseat. Not just a backseat, more like a way-in-the-back-of-the-bus-seat. The list of priorities that comes before writing is a long one: family, cooking, exercise (gotta work all those desserts off), work, house-cleaning, and so on. And life happens, of course. But there is just so much I wanted to write about from that issue of Bon Appetit…

It was The Green Issue, you see, so pretty much every article in the whole doggone magazine was a sermon I wanted to hear. A cooking magazine focusing on environmental concerns – what more could I ask for, right? To top it all off, Orangette, one of my very favorite food bloggers had her inaugural column published in this issue (the reason I bought it in the first place) and it was worth the price of admission all by itself. See, I really like her, and the article, titled “Why I’m Not a Vegetarian,” was really, really funny. Mostly because, um, I am a vegetarian.

I tried four of the recipes from this issue over the past week, and two of those were enormously successful for us (read: both the vegetarian and The Carnivore liked the recipes, AND the cook had no trouble getting the recipe right, AND ingredients were easily obtained even out here in the boonies). So of course I wanted to write about at least one of those. The decision wasn’t that big really – I could wax poetic about the cauliflower (which was so unusual, yet so incredibly flavorful) or maybe the asparagus frittata (be still my beating heart…). But then a little tiny bit of time passed, and I never made it to the computer, and then the March issue came out. And all I can think about now is that I really want to get that issue so I can read Orangette’s new column. She only blogs once a week, and I KNOW that, but still I check her website every day, just hoping she has posted something new.

I’m trying really hard to NOT subscribe to Bon Appetit, because with my schedule I can barely keep up with my reading as it is, but just the thought of not reading one of Orangette’s columns makes me cranky. And I know I get hung up on the economics of virtually everything, but if I were to purchase six of these issues at the newsstand (which I would probably end up doing), I would have paid the same price as if I had subscribed for an entire year. And I do hate to waste money…

So here I am, all side-tracked (as usual), worrying myself over budgetary concerns and still I haven’t shared either of those two wonderful new recipes. And I’m pretty sure I’m not even going to now, because something wonderful happened this morning that overshadowed all that luscious cauliflower. And that pretty little asparagus, too.

I would love to build up the suspense for a while, because I just love to make people squirm, but I can’t hold it in any longer: I WON FIVE COOKBOOKS. Not just any cookbooks, but FIVE CHOCOLATE COOKBOOKS. Oh, hold on for just a moment while I wipe the tears of joy from my eyes. I’ve danced around the stove, I’ve called my mother, I’ve shouted out of all seven of our exterior doors trying to find The Carnivore and The Big Boy (who have vanished with the wheelbarrow and are totally unaware of this life-changing bit of news), and I’m still excited. I never win anything. Oh sure, a million dollars would be fabulous to win (but I would invest it and probably wouldn’t spend a dime). And I guess I could have won a car, but that would have only irritated me, because I would have sold it (at a loss, most likely) in order to pay the taxes on the prize. And I don’t really need a car anyway.

But cookbooks? Oh. My. Goodness. Serious Eats gives away at least one cookbook a week, and I enter every single time. I mean, I’m there at Serious Eat two or three times a day anyway. It’s the first place I go when I turn the computer on each day, and it is the last site I check before I shut down for the evening. I love the writing, the recipes, the food news, the irreverent tone. I love it all. It’s like the sorority I never rushed. Or the club I never joined. Or the family I never had (work with me here).

So forget the cauliflower. Don’t worry about the asparagus. All this talk (and dancing and singing and shouting) about chocolate has taken me into a whole other direction. Because the other recipe I tried this week was a macadamia brownie recipe from the December 2007 issue of Fine Cooking. And even though I’ve never met a brownie recipe I didn’t like, this particular gooey, sticky, fudgy, over-the-top, hunka-hunka burning love brownie is so scrumptious I’m going to make another batch today even though we haven’t finished eating the first batch yet. I just don’t want to run out – it’s THAT good. And then I’m going to take the whole pan of them, and I’m going to get my lawn chair and a bottle of water, and I’m going to park myself down by the mailbox and wait for my new cookbooks to arrive.

MACADAMIA DOUBLE-DECKER BROWNIE BARS (yields 48 bars - if you exercise considerable restraint, adapted from Fine Cooking)

• BROWNIE LAYER:
• Cooking spray (to grease the pan)
• 12 Tbs unsalted butter, cut into large chunks (don't try to use margarine or some other butter substitute - when the recipe calls for butter, use butter - real butter, amen)
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/4 tsp table salt
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• MACADAMIA LAYER:
• 1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 2/3 cup light corn syrup (no, this isn't nearly as evil as high-fructose corn syrup and it has a rightful place in my baking supplies cupboard)
• 3 Tbs unsalted butter, melted
• 1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups roughly chopped salted macadamia nuts
• 1/3 cup sweeteened coconut flakes

1. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, whisk 12 Tbs butter until melted.
2. Remove the pan from the heat and add the granulated sugar, cocoa powder and salt. Whisk until well blended.
3. To the pan, add 2 eggs and 1 tsp vanilla and whisk until smooth.
4. Add the 3/4 cup flour and stir with a rubber spatula until blended.
5. Spread mixture evenly in a greased 9x13-inch baking pan, and bake at 325 degrees until the top is shiny and dry-looking and the brownie springs back very slightly when pressed with a fingertip (about 20 minutes). The brownie should NOT be completely baked - it will be going back into the oven with the next layer. Remove pan from the oven.
6. While the brownie layer is baking, combine the brown sugar and 1/3 cup flour in a large mixing bowl, and whisk until well blended.
7. To the mixing bowl, add the corn syrup, melted butter, and 1 1/2 tsp vanilla. Whisk until blended.
8. Add 2 eggs and whisk just until combined. Do not overmix.
9. Add the nuts and coconut and stir with a rubber spatula just until combined.
10. Evenly (but carefully) spread the macadamia topping over the still-warm brownie layer.
11. Return the pan to the oven and bake until the top layer is golden brown (35 to 40 minutes).

Golden Winter Soup

I have rather vehement opinions about most vegetables. Maybe it’s a vegetarian thing. After all, I would be hard-pressed to have virtually anything to eat if I weren’t at least a little adventurous in the produce section. But when it comes to how I actually feel about individual vegetables or even herbs for that matter, I’m not one to be all wishy-washy. As a general rule, I love them or hate them.

Turnips and fennel get most of my hate mail, but they belong to a very small minority. I swoon over fresh beets, and I get positively misty-eyed over asparagus. I can’t get enough basil and flat-leaf parsley in my life, and I’ve never met a green I didn’t like. I’ll eat zucchini and summer squash until I pop, and I’m sure most people would agree that you can’t go wrong with anything potato. Oh, and cauliflower and broccoli and Brussels sprouts, yum, yum, yum.

But, and here comes Embarassing Admission Number 97, there are still vegetables that I’m not well-acquainted with. I have an uneasy relationship with radicchio, but I haven’t given up that we will find common ground eventually. Eggplants have caused me some consternation, but I still have hope there as well. And I’m still trying to find a local source for broccoli rabe as it is something I’ve never even had the pleasure of meeting (and I’m a little cranky on this since I really needed some for a recipe I wanted to try tonight).

When it comes to the dizzying variety of squashes out there though, I get a bit flummoxed. I’ve got a myriad of delicious recipes for yellow crook-neck squash, but then there is acorn squash, butternut squash, delicata squash, kabocha squash, spaghetti squash, turban squash – oh, you get the idea. I stumble across these at the farmer’s markets and the supermarket and I just stand there with my head cocked to the side like a dork. I mean, sure, I’ve read about many of these different varieties, but I have zero intuitive knowledge when it comes to these things. And I can’t just pick one of them up and bring it home and then do an internet search for an appropriate recipe to go with that night’s menu. Because remember, I’m the only vegetarian in the house. And The Carnivore has been known to openly mock me when I serve something that strikes him as a little too hippie.

I walk a fine line here.

But I will not be bested by a gourd. And it was with that in mind that I felt urged on by forces stronger than me when, within the span of two days, I came across both a delicious sounding recipe for butternut squash in Cooking Light and handy instructions for peeling and cutting them in Bon Appetit. It’s as if all the stars were aligned just so…

Alright, so I felt the teeniest bit of trepidation. After all, I was planning to serve a squash soup to The Carnivore for an entrée, and I didn’t have the slightest experience with what butternut squash even tasted like, but I’ve been feeling rather snarky lately anyhow, what with being cooped up in the house with small children all winter, and I was craving, even lusting, for a little challenge to wake up the senses.

And soup just made sense for yesterday’s dinner anyway. The Carnivore had no idea how late he would be working, Little Miss Piggy has been fussier than usual lately, and The Big Boy has a bit of a cold, so clearly I wasn’t going to be able to pull together a fancy meal in which timing would be critical. I needed something that I could tinker with ahead of time a little, and then be able to keep warm for as long as necessary without compromising texture or flavor.

So I gave it a shot. The recipe was featured on the cover of the January/February issue of Cooking Light and it just looked divine. And, oh my stars, it did not disappoint. This was the most luscious, the most creamy, yet still light and delicate soup I’ve had in ages. You could taste all the flavors in each glorious slurp, and the butternut squash added such an interesting sweet note without being cloying at all, if you know what I mean. Even The Carnivore groaned happily over it, and The Big Boy greedily took a few spoonfuls before he, like all nearly-four-year-olds forgot what he was doing and ran off in a different direction. As for me, well, I woke up craving the leftovers for breakfast.

Such a winner, this soup – I can’t recommend it enough. I didn’t change a thing in the original recipe (other than substituting vegetable broth for chicken broth, of course), serving it with Gruyere toast, as recommended, and a salad of mixed greens with a quick, homemade vinaigrette.

GOLDEN WINTER SOUP (from Cooking Light, serves 5 or 6 as a main course)

• 2 Tbs butter
• 5 cups (roughly 1/2-inch) cubed peeled butternut squash, about 1 1/2 lbs, seeds scooped out and discarded
• 2 cups (roughly 1/2-inch) cubed peeled russet potatoes, about 12 oz
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp finely ground black pepper
• 2 cups sliced leeks, about 2 medium leeks (white and light green parts only)
• 4 cups vegetable broth
• 1 cup half-and-half
• 3 Tbs chopped chives
• Baguette or French bread, sliced on the diagonal
• 3 oz shredded Gruyere cheese (eh - I actually doubled this, I think - I really love cheese)

1. Melt butter in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat.
2. Add squash, potato, salt and pepper to pan. Saute for 3 minutes.
3. Add leek; saute 1 minute.
4. Stir in broth; bring to a boil.
5. Reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes or until potato is tender, stirring occasionally.
6. Puree the soup, either using an immersion blender in the pan, or whirring 1/2 the soup at a time in a regular blender (removing the center piece of the lid and covering with a towel to let steam escape without splattering the entire kitchen). I chose to only slightly blend the soup, as I prefer a little bit of chunky texture - to do this, I put all of it through the blender in a couple of batches, but I only pulsed it a few times so that each piece of vegetable was broken up, but was not completely pulverized.
7. Return soup to pan; stir in half-and-half. Keep warm over very low heat.
8. Arrange bread slices in a single layer on a baking sheet; sprinkle with cheese. Broil bread for a minute or two, until edges are golden and cheese is melted.
9. Top each serving of soup with a little chopped chives.

A Simple Snack. Made Simpler.

I have a confession to make. This is slightly embarrassing to admit, especially since I try so hard to be the poster girl for all things homemade. And of course I strive to buy as few packaged items as I can in an attempt to reduce both excessive waste (why, oh why, does everything have to come in blister packs these days) and unnecessary food miles. Because, obviously, anytime I buy a pre-made item like, say cookies, I have to confront the fact that each of the ingredients are grown or processed in different places, and then they are each trucked in to the final processing plant, and the packaging materials are trucked in, and then the finished packaged product is trucked back out to stores. And even then, we haven’t yet dealt with all my other neuroses about whether the product is made from organic ingredients, if high-fructose corn syrup is involved, and if there are ingredients I cannot pronounce.

Truly, it all gives me a headache. And God only knows what they put in Motrin.

But what about that confession, right? Well, here is the thing. For years, when I’ve craved popcorn, I’ve opened a box, ripped off the plastic wrapping, and put a bag of popcorn in the microwave. Truly, it is the only reason I even have a microwave. The Big Boy refers to the microwave as the popcorn maker and was aghast when I used it to reheat some pasta for lunch a few days ago. And what started this whole popcorn dialogue in the first place was a recent Amateur Gourmet post about microwaves, popcorn on the stove, and (oh, for pity’s sake) a discussion regarding the structural integrity of food that is reheated in microwave ovens.

Now I’m not one to bandy about architectural terms when it comes to warming up some leftovers for lunch. But it did get me to thinking because there are a number of issues with relying on microwave popcorn, and here is a short list that I have compiled:

1. On the ingredient list of the most pure, organic microwave popcorn, there is an item called “color added.” I don’t feel like complaining about the rotten English there, and besides, Big Mama already had to listen to a diatribe from me on the subject, but why is color added to popcorn? And white isn’t a color anyway.
2. The list of ingredients includes “natural flavor.” Um, what flavor? Popcorn flavor? Did the popcorn itself not come with its own flavor?
3. The afore-mentioned over-packing issue.
4. That whole food miles thing too.
5. It doesn’t even taste that great.
6. You have to use a microwave to make it.
7. There is a nasty chemical in the bags the popcorn is popped in called PFOA (short for something I can’t pronounce, which means I don’t want it near my food) that has been deemed a likely carcinogen.
8. Little kids get a BIG kick, and I mean a B.I.G. K.I.C.K. out of making popcorn on the stove.

Know how I found about number eight? Yep. I decided to go old school. When I went grocery shopping I purchased a bag of organic popcorn kernels and I popped it myself. And, because I’m in a list-making mood today, here is what I found out about popcorn that is popped on the stove:

1. It tastes better. A lot better. Big Mama came over and polished off what I didn’t eat. And she kept making noises like “yum” and “wow.”
2. Three-year-olds break out the big belly laughs when they hear the popping sounds in the pan.
3. The ingredient list on the bag only has one ingredient listed. And I bet you can figure out what that ingredient is. And I’m sure you can pronounce it.
4. It costs much less than microwave popcorn. Much, much, much less.
5. There is far less packaging than microwave popcorn.
6. It doesn’t take any more time than making it in the microwave. Okay, maybe it takes an extra 60 seconds. And you have to wash the pan. But is that really such a sacrifice?
7. It reminds me of my childhood.

Who would have thought that such a simple activity would turn into such a moment of reminiscing? When I called The Carnivore to tell him of our latest cooking project, he waxed poetic about his own childhood popping-on-the-stove adventures. Mom and I started in with one of our “Remember when…” conversations, and the whole thing just made my day. A bowl of popcorn that was rife with profundities. Really, who'd have thought? And did I mention that it tastes great? Oh, yum. I want more right now just thinking about it.

Wanna try this at home? Just imagine, we could start a revolution. A popping corn revolution. I'm getting so excited...

POPCORN

• 3 Tbs cooking oil
• 1/3 cup popcorn kernels
• Sea salt

1. Pour oil and popcorn kernels into a really, really big pan.
2. Put a lid on the pan. This is probably the most important step.
3. Heat over medium-high heat.
4. When the popping starts, begin to gently shake the pan.
5. When popping slows to a near-stop, turn off the heat, wait a couple of seconds before lifting the lid to be sure popping has stopped.
6. Get broom out anyway because you didn't wait and now there is popcorn on the floor.
7. Toss the popped corn with salt.
8. Join the revolution.

The January Greens

It could be the weather. Or maybe the sleep deprivation from having sick kids has finally caught up with me. Just last week, it was warm and sunny and we spent a few hours each day outside at the sandbox. The Big Boy built sand mountains while Little Miss Piggy lay on a blanket in the grass and kicked and blew spit bubbles. And I got to breathe fresh air and pretend that spring was just around the corner.

But then reality set back in this week. It is, after all, January. And I’m in a funk. Like schlump around the house in my slippers, sighing heavily, in a low-energy, nearly-depressed funk. I hate it when I get like this. When my list of things that are wrong with the world seems insurmountable, and I start to act lazy and mopey and just generally turn into one of those people that I don’t like very much. I feel like Eeyore.

Oh, this time of year just isn’t very much fun. I can usually stay positive through the cold days in November and December. And by February, the daffodils start blooming and my handful of disappointing tulips raise their pitiful little heads to give me something to laugh about. But January is the tough one for me. By mid-month all the excitement of the holidays has completely dissipated, and a sad anniversary for our family starts looming large in front of us, and I end up in this introspective, existential, annoying little mood.

Sure, I can still sort of see the humor in this kind of thing. And right before I do something rash, like start reciting bad poetry or reading angst-ridden philosophical tomes from college, you know, the American Idol auditions are aired and I’m able to park myself in front of the television and see, loud and clear, how bad my life could REALLY be. I suffer through the awful televised auditions every year, even though The Carnivore ends up putting a pillow over his head and groaning with agony. He has a tough time watching people make asses of themselves. I, on the other hand, love it. I mean, yeah, there are always a few uncomfortable moments, but for the most part, I end up falling down laughing at how delusional these people are. I should be embarrassed to admit all this, I’m sure. But I have no shame. Last night, I even tried to guess which drugs these morons were exposed to in utero.

It needs to get warm again. Fast. I'm clearly losing perspective.

But there were some successes yesterday. It wasn't all losers, all the time. Towards the end of our grocery shopping trip prior to dinner, during the time when I’m most apt to give in to The Big Boy’s unhealthy demands, we ended up dangerously close to the ice cream aisles and, lo and behold, a preschool-sized temper tantrum started brewing. He started fussing, Little Miss Piggy busied herself wiping snot in my hair, and I dug in my heels. And, because The Big Boy is, well, a big boy now, he jumped right out of the cart, opened the freezer case and pulled out a box of ice cream sandwiches and defiantly put it in the cart, folding his arms and setting his jaw at an arrogant angle.

“Oh, no,” I said tightly, and as quietly as possible. “This isn’t the way the world works, my little friend.”

I’m sure you can guess what happened next. He started jumping in place and raising his voice. Other shoppers began to look in our direction. Piggy began to whimper. But I had a trick up my sleeve. “If you really want ice cream sandwiches, darling, I understand and I will make you a deal.” He started to brighten up a bit. “I will not buy these things,” I said, pointing at the brightly-colored box that he had just put in the cart, “But I would be happy to take you home and help you make some ice cream sandwiches with real cookies and real ice cream.”

It took another few minutes of negotiation, but I won. And we had a delicious dessert of homemade peanut butter cookies (made with nothing more than peanut butter, sugar and eggs) sandwiched around luscious Haagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream, whose ingredient list was blessedly short and filled with words I could pronounce: cream, milk, sugar, egg yolks, and natural vanilla.

But the true winner of the day was the casserole I made for dinner. A few months ago, to curb my appetite for new cookbooks, I signed up for a daily dinner recipe to be emailed from My Recipes. Most of the time, the recipes are for meat entrees, and often I just delete the email without so much as a second glance, but recently there was a Winter Greens and Potato Casserole that just sang my song. A seasonal recipe that sounded earthy and filling and downright warm and comforting. And oh, how easy it was to put together and how utterly satisfying it was to eat. I went back for seconds and I’m looking forward to leftovers for lunch today. Even better, though this casserole may sound like a vegetarian’s dream, The Carnivore ate seconds as well.

WINTER GREENS AND POTATO CASSEROLE (adapted from MyRecipes)

• 1 lb kale or mustard greens (or a combination of the two), chopped
• 2 lbs red potatoes, sliced very thinly
• 2 cups vertically sliced onion
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 4 oz shredded provolone cheese
• 1/2 cup vegetable broth

1. Bring about 6 or so cups of water to boil in a Dutch oven. Add greens, and cook for 3 to 5 minutes, until wilted and slightly tender. Drain.
2. Coat a 9x13 baking dish with cooking spray or butter.
3. Arrange 1/3 of the potato slices in a single layer in the bottom of the casserole dish.
4. Top with 1/2 of the onion slices.
5. Sprinkle with 1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper.
6. Top with half of the greens.
7. Sprinkle with half of the cheese.
8. Add another layer of the potato slices (1/2 of the remaining amount).
9. Top with remaining onion.
10. Sprinkle with another 1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper.
11. Top with remaining greens.
12. Top greens with remaining potatoes.
13. Sprinkle with remaining cheese.
14. Pour broth over casserole.
15. Sprinkle with remaining 1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper.
16. Cover casserole dish and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.
17. Uncover and bake for another 30 minutes, until lightly browned and potatoes are tender.

I still haven’t quite figured out the best accompaniment to this dish – last night I served it alongside spicy pan-fried fish, but since the fish was from WAY far away, it kind of cancelled out the local/seasonal aspect of the casserole. Suggestions are welcome.

Master of Deception

Thanks to the influence of Michael Pollan and countless newspaper and magazine articles on the subject, I have embarked on a quest to eliminate high-fructose corn syrup from our diet. Remember how giving up trans fats was the big thing last year? Well, HFCS is next on the list around here. It is evil and it is vile and it is (grrrrr) hidden away on the ingredient list of more items than you would ever expect.

And I’m just not going to take it anymore.

So grocery store excursions are becoming increasingly more time-consuming. As if taking a nursing baby and a moody preschooler to the market isn’t enough to try one’s patience, add in a neurotic female who must read every word of every food label and, well, things can get testy.

What used to take 20 minutes has now become an all-afternoon adventure. Case in point:

Yesterday I decided to do our weekly grocery shopping at Walmart (oh, how I despise that place) because in addition to food, we needed diapers and a few other discount store items. To refrain from making unnecessary jaunts to town, I decided to suck it up and get it all done together. And after making sure The Big Boy went potty before we left, and Little Miss Piggy had a fresh diaper, and all three of us had full bellies, we spent another half-eternity buckling everyone into the car and making sure pacifiers and Hot Wheels were all within reach for the whopping six-mile car trip.

But then, of course, Little Miss Piggy decided she needed to nurse (again) right after we pulled into the parking lot which, of course, resulted in another rather funky diaper change. So finally, I stash the baby in her sling on my chest, plop The Big Boy in the three-man-cart of his choosing and, 45 minutes after I announced it was time to get in the car and go to the store, we are finally actually IN the store.

The part of the shopping experience that requires my greatest patience, though, hasn’t even begun. Taking a young child into any food store is an exercise in frustration, and I have learned that redirection is one of the few weapons in my arsenal that works with any regularity. Well, that and conflict avoidance, because, you see, if you just don’t shop on those middle aisles where all the cookies and fruit roll-ups huddle, waiting to attack, then most problems can be circumnavigated rather easily.

Not at Walmart, though. There they stick the organic yogurts right next to the neon, hyper-sweetened kiddie versions. And brightly-colored cupcakes lurk dangerously close to the cage-free eggs. And what do you think is directly beside the organic milk? Why, strawberry “milkshakes,” of course.

Conflict avoidance just isn’t an option at Wally World. So I dance madly around the yogurt section, picking up every possible healthy option and excitedly extolling it’s virtues to an increasingly suspicious three-year-old. "Look!" I shout. "French vanilla! That means this vanilla comes from another country." "Wow. Check out this one! It has strawberry bananas in it? Can you imagine? I've never seen a strawberry banana before?" Five excruciating minutes later, I win, though I pretend I’ve given in to his demands by settling for the organic fat-free blackberry yogurt. He grumbles a little and, being smarter than I tend to give him credit for, he starts immediately angling for a “special treat.” See, he knows good and well that I gypped him on the yogurt. So he starts wearing me down before I’ve fully recovered from the near-meltdown on the yogurt aisle.

And I’ve gotta admit, I was sorely tempted to just cave in and grab a bag of gummy worms from the end-cap. But doggone it, I was sacrificing my favorite coffee creamer in the name of this HFCS-Freedom Fight and I was already kind of on edge about it. “Creativity,” I reminded myself. There has to be some creative alternative to gummy candies that will seem just as appealing to a three-year-old. Redirection is my best friend, after all.

And then it hit me. And I nearly knocked myself over trying to reach behind my head to give myself a good old-fashioned pat on the back.

Dried apricots.

That’s right. Dried apricots. No sugar, no high-fructose corn syrup. No chemicals that I can’t pronounce. No long ingredient lists. And, best of all, they’re big, they’re bright orange, and they’re chewy. Just. Like. Gummy. Candy. And The Big Boy thought he’d gotten away with something, because these “apricot gummies” came in a much bigger bag than the nasty sugar-coated worm things that he had originally requested. He snickered at me and ate them greedily, refusing to share even one.

Jessica Seinfeld, eat my dust.

Snack-and-Read Sundays

I love to read. I don’t just mean that, given nothing else to do, I will read in lieu of twiddling my thumbs. I truly, absolutely LOVE to read. And I worry constantly about instilling this same love of words in my children. I can only assume this compunction came from my mother. She too loves to read, and devoted her entire career to libraries. It didn’t hurt that we didn’t have a television during my early childhood, and with the exception of the few months that we lived with my uncle and his stepchildren, I was never really around other children. So, with no one to play with and no TV to rot my brain, I read. And I read. And I read.

And it stuck with me. Up until the past couple of years, I preferred suspense novels to all else. Lest anyone think I’m over-intellectualized, it should not be overlooked that I leaned towards the mass market pulp: John Sandford, Stuart Woods, James Patterson. Even during my twenties, when I went out every night after work to shows or just to hang out with friends, my favorite pastime for hours spent alone was reading. I would curl up on the sofa in sweatpants and read an entire day away. I loved the escape of immersing myself in a fictional character, living for just a few hours in a world that existed only within the confines of a book.

I read the newspapers during my lunch breaks or between classes, and of course dragged myself through the pages of countless textbooks, but for leisure, for true relaxation, fiction was all I wanted. When I would talk to my mother, we always discussed what each of us was reading at the time, and I began to fear she was losing her mind. She had always read fiction when I was a kid, but she was suddenly beginning to only read non-fiction. And it didn’t make any sense to me. She complained about feeling manipulated by fiction, but it was exactly that which I loved about it. I didn’t want to think. I didn’t mind being strung along by some author I had never met. And actually enriching my mind was nothing more than an afterthought. I got enough of that from my professors. I certainly didn't want to waste precious reading time on learning.

Mom said it was an age thing. I had no other response than ‘whatever.’ Clearly, growing up wasn’t going to be any fun at all if it meant I would no longer be interested in fictional stories.

Then I started dating The Carnivore. At first I was so utterly attracted to the fact that he was a reader (unlike previous boyfriends) that I didn’t notice he only read non-fiction. He read every word of the newspapers, the local music rags, and any political books he could get his hands on. When I finally noticed that he didn’t ever stick his nose in a fictional best-seller, I started to get a little worried. It turned out he agreed with my mother. It was an age thing, he said. Oh dear, I thought.

And somehow, ever so gradually, it crept up on me as well. I didn’t wake up one day and think to myself, “Today is the day I will stop reading novels.” Rather, I first got hooked on cooking magazines, and then I dove headfirst into a sea of food lit and didn’t ever, I mean ever, want to come up for air.

It began with Julie and Julia, a book written by a food blogger and which my mother found for me shortly after I began blogging about food myself. And I loved it. I howled with laughter at the author's antics and read whole sections of it out loud to The Carnivore. I fell madly in love with reading food blogs themselves, which turned me on to other food lit. I read Anthony Bourdain, Gael Greene, Ruth Reichl, Amanda Hesser. I scoured Amazon for similar items (man, I love that feature) and I started devouring every chef biography I could find (thank God for used books).

I didn’t REALLY want to give up fiction altogether though, or so I thought. When the most recent Patricia Cornwell novel came out, I eagerly snagged it and couldn’t wait to jump back into the Scarpetta character that I’ve gotten to know over the past 15 years or so.

Imagine my dismay when I realized I no longer cared about Scarpetta. Or her sidekicks, or even the story itself. I just had no interest in them anymore. I had (oh, say it isn’t so) grown out of it. And all I could think was that I wanted to hurry up and finish it so I could move on to the newest book that just arrived in the mail, one which I had been looking forward to for the past few weeks: The Amateur Gourmet. Yep, another non-fiction food lit-type book.

I wonder if it is an age thing.

Sundays are snack-and-read-days around our house. For only one day a week, we release ourselves from all obligations other than attending church, and we prefer the early service so that we can be home by 11am and have the entire day ahead of us to lounge in our pajamas, read the newspapers and whatever books we’re in the middle of, and play with the kids. There are no chores beyond making the bed and doing the dishes, and there is a non-negotiable moratorium on money-related tasks. The Carnivore will do no bids. I will neither communicate with my clients nor tinker with our own budget. And I will not cook dinner.

That’s right. Even I want a day off from cooking. Oh sure, The Big Boy and I might whip up a batch of peanut butter cookies if we’re so inclined (like we were this week), but any cooking is limited to desserts or snack foods. It’s a hard-and-fast rule, and we stick to it religiously, even planning our Saturday dinners so that there will be leftovers for Sunday lunch.

Ah, but we love to snack while we read (or while we watch Planet Earth – our latest addiction). Salsa and tortilla chips is my usual favorite, but it’s all but impossible to find decent tomatoes right now, and we’ve already run through the stash that I froze at the end of last summer. The Carnivore leans toward creamy blue cheese dips, and in my long-running quest to find the perfect recipe for him, I have gotten hooked as well. Finally, a few months ago, I happened across a winner in the AJC “From the restaurant of…” column, whereby the food section obtains readers’ favorite recipes from local restaurants. And honest to goodness, after attempting countless permeations on blue cheese dip, it is a great relief to have finally found one that The Carnivore deemed worthy of ending the quest.

Oh, and it is such a satisfying way to spend the day. With a couple handful of carrots and a big batch of blue cheese dip, we curl up with our children and our books and loudly crunch away.

THE BRICKERY GRILL AND BAR'S BLUE CHEESE DRESSING

• 1 cup Hellman's mayonnaise (yep - it has to be Hellman's, I've tried others with bad results)
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 2 Tbs cold water
• 1 1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp finely ground black pepper
• 7 oz crumbled blue cheese (I often add more)

1. In a bowl, whisk together the first six ingredients.
2. Stir in the blue cheese.
3. Chill at least six hours before serving (it takes that long for the flavors to develop).

Off the Wagon

We’ve fallen off the local, seasonal eating bandwagon. There, I’ve admitted it. I feel as if I should be attending meetings. “Hi, my name is Sarah. I am an eat-it-when-I-want-it addict.”

It is so easy to eat locally in the spring and summer, especially in the South. Nearly everything I want or need grows in our region, if not within 30 miles of our house. I can just jump right up onto my high horse and settle into the saddle in the most sanctimonious of fashions. (Until I start craving cherries, that is. The fruit that seems to only come from California and Washington when in season in this country. But that’s a whole other topic altogether, and Mom is working on this problem for me).

Winter can get a bit bleak, even here. Other than apples and pears, which grow here, and citrus, which grows in a neighboring state (close enough for me, in other words), all the other fruits in the grocery store come from South America. And since organic apples are so bloody expensive, I try to limit us to five or six of them per week, which means, of course, that The Big Boy gets to eat the apple flesh and I’m stuck munching on his discarded peelings like a rabbit.

It is relatively easy to stick with eating fruits only when they are in season, especially if you’ve ever tried one of those vile, sour-tasting, strange-textured blueberries from goodness only knows where in January. Besides, nothing will ever compare to the ecstasy of a sun-warmed, plump, fully ripe blueberry eaten right off the bush. From my kitchen table, where I sit right now, I can see the spot where the blueberry bushes used to be. There were maybe 50 of them, big, tall and sprawling, and they produced more berries than any one family could dream of eating. The owners of the property never minded berry poachers, and we would often hear families with young children over there early in the day, stocking their buckets and trying to make friends with our nosy dogs. We joined in the harvest as well, but tended to go later in the afternoon. The heat didn’t bother us so much, even though we would bake in the sun, and the warmth only made the blueberry juice taste that much sweeter. The Big Boy loved them, and he would sit in his wagon while The Carnivore dumped handfuls of the berries in his chubby little hands. I, the sensible and self-controlled one, would fill up plastic containers to take home with us.

And then, early last spring, we watched in dismay as the son of the property owners dug up all the bushes to make way for tree seedlings for his landscaping company. We sat on some abandoned concrete steps to nowhere on our side of the property line and heaped curses upon the man's head. I suppose we should plant our own blueberries now. We have plenty of land. I’m just not sure I have the patience to wait for new bushes to mature.

Hmmm. I did go off on a tangent there, didn’t I? What I meant to say when I began typing this, was that vegetables are my weakness. Even though they too obviously taste better when in season, and especially when local and super-fresh, I have a hard time depriving myself of some of my favorites during the winter. Summer squashes are soft and a bit mealy during December, but as you can clearly see from my last post, I baked up a couple batches of crook-neck squash casserole just a week or so ago. Don’t get me wrong, I felt guilt over the whole concept when I was buying them, but buy them I did.

And then I went back to the store and got zucchini so I could make the Italian Vegetable Soup recipe that I crave so often. The carrots and celery in my crisper drawer came from California. And the mushrooms that I will be using for a frittata for tonight’s dinner are Pennsylvania grown. I am a heathen.

At the end of our CSA season (a startlingly early date in the beginning of last August), I was still able to supplement our grocery store purchases with locally grown produce from the Saturday morning farmer’s market. Then it too shut down for the year, and I silently granted myself carte-blanche to purchase anything I wanted, so long as it was grown in the continental United States. I tried not to feel too guilty because, after all, at least the vegetables grown here can be certified as organic, and my money will be supporting farmers in this country, and hey, California is a lot closer than Chile, right?

But let’s be brutally honest. It is a well-known and widely accepted fact that the average fruit or vegetable travels 1,500 miles to get into the average American’s hand. California is a good 2,500 miles away from my house. Obviously, I suck. There is just no way around it.

Maybe a good, old-fashioned coarse correction is in order here. After all, I noticed on the blog of one of our farmer’s market vendors that she and her tablemates ate a mostly local Christmas dinner. I failed to even feel guilt over the worldwide meal I enjoyed for the holiday. I. Am. Ashamed. Some changes are going to have to be made to the Beam family winter menus.

Luckily for us, we’re big fans of cool season greens like kale and collards. And some of our favorite vegetables like cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, carrots and potatoes are growing around our area right now. As a matter of fact, there was a broccoli and cheese soup recipe in last week’s food section that I’m dying to try, and (oh, the synergy) I saw that broccoli is available for order from Athens Locally Grown. Now if I can just remember to make my order during the two-day window that is offered, and then drag myself into town during their three or four hour pickup window on Thursday afternoon. This will not be without its sacrifices.

Regardless, I will happily share our beloved braised cabbage recipe here since we are fortunate enough to be smack dab in the middle of local cabbage season right now. We first tried this technique a couple of years ago and we were hooked from day one. This is the first and only recipe I have used for cooking cabbage, but The Carnivore and I agree it resulted in the best-tasting cabbage we’ve both ever had, including at Southern meat-and-three restaurants. We keep swearing we will make this for company sometime so that we can convert a cabbage-hater or two, but we never really feel like sharing. We love it that much. And any time one can excite a devout meat-eater with cabbage, one ought to count her blessings, I think. And the carrots, oh the sweet, tender carrots. I put as many of them in this dish as I can fit into the pan. The Big Boy will fight us tooth and nail for the beautiful, bright orange slices. And you know the rules, right? If a three-year-old has cleaned his plate and is poaching carrots from our plates, well then, a mom can consider it all a job well done.

*****

BRAISED GREEN CABBAGE (adapted from All About Braising, serves 6)

• 1 head green cabbage (about 2 lbs), outer leaves discarded, cut into 8 wedges
• 1 large yellow onion, thickly sliced
• 4 or 5 large carrots, cut into 1/4-inch rounds
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup vegetable broth
• 1/8 tsp crushed red pepper flackes
• Coarse salt
• Freshly ground black pepper

1. Lightly oil a 9x13 baking dish.
2. Arrange the cabbage wedges in the dish in a single layer.
3. Scatter in the onion and carrots.
4. Pour in the oil and broth.
5. Season with salt, pepper, and the red pepper flakes.
6. Cover tightly with foil and braise in the oven at 325 degrees for 2 hours. Turn the cabbage wedges with tongs after one hour (they will fall apart a little - don't stress too much over this).
7. After two hours, remove the foil, increase the heat to 400 degrees, and roast until the vegetables begin to brown, about 15 minutes (this makes the carrots even sweeter).
8. Serve warm, sprinkled with additional coarse salt.

Squash and Rice Casserole

Honest to goodness, New Year’s Day stresses me out. What should be a perfectly relaxing holiday is instead a long and drawn-out day filled with admonitions to begin diets, get organized, start exercising... It’s all very depressing. And it was coming from all sides yesterday. Even the newspaper, instead of focusing on the Iowa Caucus, which is THIS WEEK, wasted scads of paper printing other people’s resolutions (to make the rest of us feel inadequate) and instructions from the experts on how to stick to your own resolutions. Booorrrrrring.

It’s a holiday, people. Enjoy it. Eat cake. Read a trashy novel. Watch football. Life is short.

For Christmas, my sister-in-law gave me a Joy of Cooking page-a-day calendar. I’d so been looking forward to starting it and had it sitting out proudly on the menu desk in my kitchen. I’m too much of a stickler to have peeked ahead, so instead of paying any attention to what The Carnivore said when HE read through the first few pages (a week too soon, I might add), I woke up yesterday and ran for the calendar immediately after starting the coffee, eager to learn something new. Imagine my utter dismay when the first page was about how to stick to a diet.

IN A COOKING CALENDAR! I mean, you’ve gotta be kidding me, right? The first page of a cooking calendar is about dieting. What a letdown. I was hoping for a new recipe, or a kitchen tip, or possibly some interesting food fact about New Year’s Day and black-eyed peas. What did I get? A diet tip.

Oh, the horror. The horror.

Sure, I know that I'm going to carry very little credibility on this issue. After all, who wants to hear about an aversion to dieting from a skinny chick? Truth be told, I do have to pay attention to my weight, and I often (when I'm not pregnant or nursing) adjust my diet accordingly. And I follow a fairly strict adherence to a policy of moderation. Because I absolutely, steadfastly refuse to swear off ALL the good stuff. That, my friend, is nothing but a recipe for disaster. My favorite diet tip, on any day EXCEPT New Year’s Day (when I clearly don't want to hear anything at all about dieting), is to enjoy everything you like (here’s the key) in moderation.

But then again, I probably shouldn’t be given too much credence. I’m the odd one who adds the fat and calories BACK IN to diet recipes. See, I like healthy cookbooks and cooking magazines; they tend to include more vegetarian-oriented recipes. But, and I know I’ve mentioned this before, I get super cranky about ingredient lists that include fat-free dairy items and egg substitutes. Flavor is too important, and life far too short, for that kind of nonsense.

So I take perfectly good diet recipes, and I get busy negating the ‘diet’ part. Which, um, is probably more ridiculous I think. But in my defense, low-fat and fat-free dairy items are, I swear, the reason I had such bad skin for the 10 years or so that I subscribed to the low-fat diet concept in the late-eighties and early-nineties. And that egg substitute product has far more chemicals in it than an actual egg. Plus, and here is where my science really starts to get faulty, I wholeheartedly maintain that all these fake fat-free foods don’t fill you up for more than 10 minutes. So if you're hungry again immediately, then saving those calories just wasn't worth it then, don't you think?

I know, I know, if I try hard enough, I can justify anything. Parsing words isn’t going to change the fact that what I’m really doing is just adding the flavor back in. Calories and fat grams, be darned. Which brings me to my favorite new recipe…

A recent issue of Cooking Light had a squash-rice casserole recipe that sounded intriguing. And since it, unlike most old-fashioned Southern squash casserole recipes, didn’t call for three or four sticks of butter, I got a little excited. Because even if I added some much-needed fat back into the recipe, it would still be healthier than if it had gobs of butter in it. So I got busy tinkering. I substituted yellow squash for the zucchini, went for vegetable broth in place of the chicken broth (a vegetarian trick I rely on regularly), opted for brown rice in place of white rice (which, by the way, actually made the recipe MORE healthy), used full-fat cheese and full-fat sour cream in place of the reduced-fat and fat-free items called for in the original recipe (important for the flavor, remember), and used whole-wheat breadcrumbs rather than plain old white ones (again, making the finished product MORE healthy).

You see how good I am at justifying my actions. But if you just focus on the brown rice and the whole-wheat breadcrumbs, you can almost (if you stretch yourself) pretend that the extra fat grams from the dairy products are canceled out. And besides, since there is less fat in vegetable broth than in chicken broth, I actually REDUCED the fat in, well, one little tiny ingredient.

Whatever. When I made this casserole for The Carnivore’s family and for my family at Christmas, it got rave reviews. So if you’re counting calories for your (argh) New Year’s Resolution, this may not be the recipe for you.

*****

SQUASH AND RICE CASSEROLE (the fattened-up version)

• 8 cups sliced yellow squash or zucchini, or combination of the two (about 2 1/2 pounds)
• 1 cup chopped red onion
• 1/2 cup vegetable broth
• 2 cups cooked brown rice
• 1 cup (4 oz) shredded extra-sharp cheddar cheese
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1/4 cup (1 oz) grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 cup whole-wheat breadcrumbs
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• Cooking spray

1. Combine squash, onion and broth in a Dutch oven and bring to a boil. Cover, and reduce heat to simmer for 15 - 20 minutes, until squash is slightly tender, but not all mushy.
2. Drain, and slightly mash the squash.
3. Combine squash, rice, cheese, sour cream, 2 Tbs of the parmesan cheese, breadcrumbs, salt, pepper and eggs; stir together.
4. Pour into a 9x13 casserole dish coated with cooking spray, and sprinkle with remaining parmesan cheese.
5. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
6. Broil for a minute or so until top is browned.