Category Archives: Play

Hello from Wednesday Evening

Food, Weather, Work

In which I’m making soup!

I’ve just put some vegetables, herbs de Provence, and broth into the Instantpot. Will add cream when it’s done and blend it.

Baked a stunning loaf of bread last night; gonna make a brie sandwich with it and that’ll be dinner!

Pluto has a channel that just plays endless back-to-back episodes of The Love Boat and I’m super into it these past few days. What a weird-ass show! It’s so incredibly horny.

I cut my hair yesterday. The only cut I ever do: pull it all carefully to the nape, whack it off. Instant asymmetrical bob! I don’t really like how thin, straight, dry, and awful my hair is these days, but what can you do. I also don’t like being old and fat, either. Oh, well.

Work is insane lately. They’re making cheese probably four or five times a week, there’s ice cream now, foot traffic is really picking up, and we’re hosting Poutine, Eh? (a Tri-cities Restaurant) in pop-up format every Saturday. I used to order from the distributor every two months, now it’s twice as often and we’re always perpetually nearly out of crackers. I spend a lot of time making custom snack packs for local tasting rooms.

I’m the only person still wearing a mask at work; I’m doing it because the global consensus appears to be that it’s the best approach, even if local mandates say otherwise. As of today, I only know personally of two people who have caught Covid-19 (an uncle of his, and a co-worker of mine) but with everybody going back to normal and variants, well I want to do the right thing.

The kitchen window sill is full of herbs and a jade tree cutting Embo gave me. None of the several tomato plants out front have set any fruit. I guess next year I’ll just put flowers in the raised beds since it’s a rental and I don’t care enough to replace all the soil. (Did tell the owners we’d buy it if it were ever for sale, but I doubt they want to sell since this is their designated house-to-retire-into.)

Today’s the first day the high temp was under 95 in weeks. It’s been unbelievably hot and dry. It’s supposed to get down to 55 tonight so I’m going to turn off the A/C for only the third time in as many weeks (once for service, and a few nights ago to air out the stuffiness) and open the house up.

Time to go eat some soup!

Pizza Sauce

Food, Recipes

In which these are my go-to pizza sauces!

Since I got into #breadin5, I’ve been making a lot of pizza. Here are my favorite pizza sauce recipes.

Tomato Sauce

14 oz can tomatoes
3 – 4 garlic cloves
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
salt & pepper
red pepper flakes

Blend until smooth. If you don’t have balsamic, sub apple cider vinegar and sugar.

Store in a jar in the fridge or freeze.

Feta Sauce

In a grinder, blend until smooth:

Feta cheese
olive oil
garlic cloves

Use on white pizza.

It’s fantastic on dill pickle pizza (dough, feta sauce, mozzarella, dill pickles, and dill weed).

Bianca

Olive oil, minced garlic clove/s, salt. Warm until fragrant.

Recipe notes, nbd

Recipes

In which these are notes to myself.

MASA

stir together

3 cups maseca nixta masa
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp freshly ground cumin
1/2 tsp salt

mix in

6 tbsp vegetable oil

add

6 c water
2 tbsp knorr soup base paste

mix until fluffy, 5 minutes

Instant Pot, high pressure, 20-25 minutes, natural release

SAUCE FOR CHICKEN TAMALES

boil

2 c water
2 chile arbol
6 misc small dried red chiles
1-2 cloves garlic

remove to blender and blend until smooth

heat

1 tsp vegetable oil in a sauce pan

return blended mix to pan, simmer until reduced

add s&p and/or sugar to taste

force through a sieve, cool

mix with shredded chicken for chicken tamales

SALSA DE TOMATE

water
garlic
tomatoes
(chicken) bouillon cube
s&p
oil
onion
bell pepper

Happy October!

Life, Recipes

In which I’ve put the fall leaves window clings up, and am looking forward to cardigan weather!

Not much to report, really. I’m just blogging because it was on my to do list and I’d rather do this than run the vacuum.

I work, I hang out at home. That’s about it. I stepped into the Mexican restaurant last week to pick up some carry out, and stopped at the corner store a couple times, but other than that I’m only ever in the two buildings. We’ve been ordering carry-out groceries from Walmart for months.

Garden’s nearly over. Didn’t get much produce, which is okay. Three or four cucumbers, which were utterly delicious. Two I made into refrigerator pickles. A few handfuls of cherry tomatoes I’ve just used here and there, and only a couple beefsteak tomatoes so far (but there are three nearly ripe I’m looking forward to). Am planning to add a bunch of mulch to the beds and hopefully turn and mix them thoroughly after I pull out the plants after the first freeze. The soil’s packed and water doesn’t really soak in, and though the plants are reasonably healthy they don’t seem robust.

Work’s still great. The owners are amazing people, the work is fun to me (I genuinely enjoy cutting and packaging cheese, and average about thirty-five pounds a day). The staff these days is a couple of dudes and a couple of high school kids, so I get to tell people to clean up after themselves and do their own dishes before they leave, but it could be worse. People who don’t close rarely think to put their shit away without being told, it’s just how the world works.

Still utterly in love with Inland Empire weather. Proper spring! PROPER FALLL! The days are warm, the nights are cool, leaves are turning slowly, perfect sleeping weather! Minneapolis is a cool city, but my God the weather fucking sucks in comparison. I asked my better half if he’s starting to find the mild weather out here boring, and he replied that he still loves not having to drive in blizzards five months a year. So that’s good! I suppose if he gets missing real winter, we could chain up the Jeep and go drive in the Blues until he gets over it.

I turned 52 last week. Had been mentally planning a big blog post but when the day came realized I didn’t really give a shit. There’s a lot about aging-while-female nobody ever told me, sure, but when it comes down to it even I don’t want to listen to myself bitch about how weird it is to be old. Dry feet, sagging skin, aches, fat that won’t budge. All the weird menopausal atrophy is weird as hell, but other than being briefly distressing it’s just what it is: if you somehow manage not to die young, you get to witness your reproductive system shutting down. Getting uglier every day sucks, and how much stuff just hurts for no good reason other than being old is pretty shocking, but hey, it’s all downhill from here!

Watching tons of TV. Tons. Like, hours and hours every single day. Some nighttime soap garbage called ‘Chicago Fire,’ basically anything on BritBox, crap on Amazon, Netflix, YouTube. The volume of TV I’ve been watching is astonishing, and I keep buying books so I will read instead, but then I don’t read! I have at least ten books piled up, too.

I have a pair of socks and a pair of felted slippers to finish knitting, but they’re just sitting there in the basket. Haven’t touched ’em since, what, June? July?

My phone started failing to connect to wifi and cell at random but frequent intervals, so after a reasonable amount of resetting and basic troubleshooting, I bought a new one. I hate the massive waste that is the entire cell phone industry, but man, I use the shit out of my cell phone. And getting a shiny new one really is a lovely feeling.

I do my best. I recycle, I compost, I mend my clothes. I eat my leftovers. I try to buy stuff in minimal packaging where possible. I make sincere efforts to keep plastic waste to a minimum at work. But I still keep buying new phones every two years… mostly because they stop fucking working after two years, they’re built to fail.

Still in love with this house. It’s perfect, even the weird bits (like the garage built directly over the kitchen window). It’s comfortable, cute, a perfect size, clean, and everything works. The oven hood burns through appliance bulbs, but that’s really the only issue — everything else works perfectly. The kitchen would benefit from another grounded outlet or two, but it’s workable. Love the location, and the neighborhood’s quiet enough; incredibly quiet compared to the Uptown apartment!

I’d intended to have my mother, aunt, and grandmother over for tea this spring, and also to have thrown a housewarming party after we’d finished furnishing the place, but pandemics happen. We’ve been here a year now and have had a grand total of five guests, one of which was my brother’s dog. People keep making noises about gathering together, but I just think it’d be stupid. We’re all bored of not having social lives, and I’d love to hang out with people, but without rapid testing I feel it’s too dangerous. Imagine having tea with your relatives and accidentally killing one of them because you caught fucking Coronavirus from some redneck at work and didn’t know it? No thanks.

Apropos of nothing, here’s an easy and spectacularly delicious egg dish:

Baked Chile Rellenos

adapted from Lazy Chiles Rellenos

Mix together:
5 eggs
2 c. milk
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp cayenne
salt & pepper, to taste

Pour into an 11×9″ casserole.

Stir in:
1/3 lb grated Monterey jack cheese
1 4oz can diced fire roasted green chiles
1 4oz can diced jalapeno peppers

Place casserole onto a cookie sheet and put in an oven preheated to 325F. Pour hot tap water into the cookie sheet until it’s full.

Bake for 40 minutes.

Serve with steamed corn tortillas, rice, and beans, or fold into a burrito.

Birthday Baking

Recipes

In which there’s bread!

Today’s his birthday, and he’s been asking me to make the knock-off Jimmy John’s bread recipe for awhile, so I did! Here’s the recipe:

No wonder it’s so nice, it’s got a teaspoon of sugar and even more oil per roll!

Here’s the dough after the first rise:

Now, do behold my utter lack of shaping skills!

(I didn’t shape. I just turned the dough out and cut it. There was no instruction to punch down, so I didn’t.)

They smell good, though, and are nice and soft, and hopefully will make good sandwiches!

Yes, obviously next time, if ever there is one, I’ll punch down, and shape with a bit more aggression. I’m just so used to the no-knead method.

Now I want to get some guacamole and sliced provolone, so I can make myself a homemade copycat #6 The Veggie. Hah!

This is what I made for dinner:

Buttered eggs (with garlic scapes, mushrooms, and goat cheese), roasted asparagus, and smashed potatoes. Pretty delicious. Should have defrosted something dead and fired up the grill—after all, it is his birthday—but I didn’t. Too busy baking bread, plus it’s hot as hell out today for outdoor cooking.

Vegetarian Split Pea Soup

Recipes

In which holy shit THIS REALLY IS A RECIPE BLOG NOW.

Okay, not really! This isn’t a proper recipe as much as a reminder to myself for the next time. The smoked paprika and yellow mustard really made this dish.

Heat:

butter & olive oil

Add chopped:

onions
carrots
celery

Saute until soft. Add:

dried split peas
water + vegetable bouillon
smoked paprika
prepared yellow mustard
Herbs de Provence
salt

Simmer or pressure cook until the split peas are soft.

Season with salt & freshly ground black pepper.

Serve with a drizzle of olive oil and a garnish of fresh thyme.

Soba with Blue Cheese

Recipes

In which it’s a recipe!

Now, this dish doesn’t look much in this photo because I was too lazy to properly plate or garnish, but it’s nutty, incredibly rich, earthy, and awesome.

Soba is a Japanese pasta made with buckwheat flour, wheat flour, and sometimes yam. It’s often served chilled in summer with a tamari-based dipping sauce, but you can also use it hot, as in this recipe.

(There aren’t any measurements because you can just choose ratios that make sense to you and/or please your palate.)

    Bleu Cheese Soba

    1. Boil soba noodles according to package directions.

    2. Mince onion and celery, and saute gently in butter in a small skillet.

    3. Drain soba, return to pan, add the sauteed vegetables and butter. Add half and half and crumbled blue cheese. Toss ’til the blue cheese is melted, and season liberally with cracked black pepper.

    Soba is an odd color, so this dish would probably look best served with a garnish of minced parsley, cracked black pepper, and shaved parm-reg.

This is a very rich dish with strong flavors, so maybe try a sauv blanc or a hoppy beer? And because it’s so soft, something crunchy alongside, a salad featuring pear or fig, or possibly a fresh spinach salad with a grapefruit viniagrette, would be excellent.

So easy to make, and so delicious!

DUDE I BOUGHT A TINY GRILL!!!

Domestic Goddess, Food

In which there’s a TINY GRILL!

So I use a Chase VISA that gives me points. I spent some on this little grill and it arrived today.

I realize it’s a pandemic and I probably should have turned those points into cash but JUST LOOK AT THIS ADORABLE, PORTABLE LITTLE THING. Holy shit. Smitten.

Now I know people often shop specifically for foods to cook on the BBQ, but I want to play with this thing NOW and I’m not going to the store unless I really, really need to (because nobody out here is social distancing for SHIT).

So I rustled up some stuff and tossed it all in a bowl with olive oil and salt & pepper.

Potato, tomato, mushrooms, garlic, onion, jalapeno, halloumi, and a 2-day old baguette.

FIRE! WHOO!

We already had charcoal, lighter fluid, and a grill set in the garage because my aunt gave them to us last year.

Is there anything more wonderful than sitting next to a little grill on a blanket next to an irrigation ditch on an absolutely GORGEOUS, BREEZY spring day?

No, there is NOT.

Ate this smoky bounty with some garlic tomato sauce I keep in the fridge for pizzas. (Recipe is canned tomato, garlic, vinegar, olive oil, salt & pepper, in the blender. Super easy and super delicious.)

Grilled bread and halloumi with garlic tomato sauce is FANTASTIC. With mushrooms and garlic and onions? Sort of a deconstructed grilled pizza!

Put the tomato, jalapeno, and some of the onion and garlic in the blender with a can of diced tomatoes and some cilantro, for salsa.

Possibly the very best afternoon EVER! Just sittin’ outside, slowly grilling (I only used 15 briquettes because there’s no point in wasting fuel) and eating, enjoying the creek and the breeze and the warmth and the green and some pink wine.

FUCK YEAH TINY GRILL!

Bonus salsa!

I AM SO HAPPY!

Trying a new and different flour!

Food, Recipes

In which these are just baking notes (I’ll want to know what ratios I used if this batch is either a raging success or a terrific failure).

Grocery store’s been entirely out of flour the last few times I was in there, but last Sunday’s paper had an article about a local wheat farmer. Visited the website and guess what? FREE LOCAL DELIVERY! Thanks, pandemic!

I bought some flour online, and he dropped it by on Monday. (His truck wouldn’t start, so I made him a cup of coffee while he waited for his son to rescue him, and we had a quick chat. He’d like the cheese shop to carry his flour, but the owners are already planning to carry another local farmer’s flour.) Yay, local wheat farming people!

Last night I used up the last of my refrigerated dough on a pizza (which we ate immediately) and a demi baguette (which I used for lunch sandwiches this afternoon). Now I’m totally out of King Arthur all purpose flour, so this is my first time using this local flour with higher protein and lower gluten.

3 c. warm water
1 packet yeast
1-1/2 c. white grocery store flour
1/2 c. atta
4 c. Joel’s Organics bread flour
1 Tbsp. salt

I suspect it’ll be fine because of the long hydration time, and with what was left of my white flour for the added gluten. I was tempted to add a bit more water, but decided to make my recipe as I usually do as a baseline.

I’ll try a baguette with it tomorrow and see what I get!

I also bought 5 pounds of buckwheat flour, because I had a brain fart and got it mixed up with spelt. I’ll have to figure out how to make buckwheat muffins or pancakes or whatever. Might just add a cup of it to the next batch of dough to see how that tastes, maybe instead of the atta?

—
THE NEXT DAY:

Dough looks good, lots of activity and air bubbles:

Made a pizza, the crust was lovely and soft, a bit more like whole wheat.

Decent oven spring on the boule.

Looks like previous first-day boules. The crumb is really soft, flavor’s nice. Really fantastic crispy crust! Excited to try a baguette with it after the dough’s had a few more days to ferment.

So Here’s My Version of the Famous Bread Recipe

Domestic Goddess, Food, Recipes

In which, okay, I know I’ve posted too much about bread lately, and some of these pics are recycled, but this is my adaptation of someone else’s adaptation of the ‘Artisan Bread In 5 Minutes A Day’ method.

I think I’ve got my dough recipe dialed in! This has amazing crust and crumb. Here we go!

One part hot tap water (3 cups).

One packet yeast.

Two parts flour (about 6 unsifted cups):
– 50% King Arthur all-purpose
– 25% atta (whole wheat flour, used to make Indian chapati)
– 25% grocery store white all-purpose flour

Salt (a tablespoon or so).

In a large bowl, place the water (100F or so, no hotter) and the yeast. Dump in all the flour, then the salt. Stir together into a shaggy, wet mass (I use the handle of a spatula, it’s chrome and sort of like a dough hook).

Cover loosely and let rise at room temperature for two hours (I put mine in the oven with the light on, and use one of those plastic bowl covers with elastic) and then refrigerate.

When you remember it’s there later (as soon as a few hours, as late as ten days), use kitchen shears to cut off a chunk of the dough, maybe the size of an apple. It’ll be really sticky, so flour your hands. Shape it into a ball with the tuck-and-turn method shown here (I do mine on a pastry mat, but you can do it anywhere, really).

Put a metal bowl or pan into your oven, big enough to hold at least a cup of water, but larger is fine (I use a stainless dog bowl). Also place a baking stone or cast iron (shallow frying pan or griddle) into your oven.

Set the oven temperature to at least 450 (I do most of my baking between 450 and 500F).

When your dough’s warmed up some (you don’t want it super cold in the center as that will affect how it bakes, especially with boules, but you don’t need to bring it all the way to room temp), put it on a piece of parchment paper. Then score the top with a serrated knife. This is to allow for oven spring, but you can get all fancy decorative if you’re like that.

Get a cup or so of hot tap water.

Open your oven, and quickly put the bread on its parchment directly on the hot stone or cast iron, pour the hot water into the pan or bowl, and close the door.

If you have a clean spray bottle, fill it with water, and spray the inside of the oven thoroughly at least three times during the first seven minutes to keep the loaf moist and encourage oven spring. After 7 or 10 minutes, you can quit spraying and let the crust develop.

Bake your bread until it’s a light golden brown, somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes depending on the size of the loaf.

Cool on a wire rack.

To make baguette, I let it sit in a round for about ten minutes, dust it with flour again, and roll it out gently with the palms of my hands. Sometimes I pick it up and let its own weight stretch it out a bit. You want to handle it gently so you don’t pop all the air bubbles inside, so getting an even baguette is tricky; mine usually have a big lump somewhere but they taste fantastic.

To make pita, flour the hell out of the dough and roll it into thin rounds. Bake at 500F on the hot stone or cast iron; no water pan or misting is needed. The moisture in the dough will be trapped by the flour cloak, and the pita will steam inside. Keep in a tea towel so it doesn’t dry out.

For pizza, let it sit in a ball for ten minutes, then roll into a thin round and top. Bake on the stone or use a separate cookie sheet or pizza pan. I do the water pan but it’s not strictly necessary.

For naan, roll it into an oval and cook in a hot, dry pan on the stove top. When it’s done, brush with ghee. Keep in a tea towel until service.