Tag Archive | Joy of Cooking

This Week in the Kitchen

Aug23

It was a good week in the kitchen, starting with Boyz Lunch, though we’re down to just two of us now. We toasted John with iced coffees then enjoyed philosophical conversation, homemade french fries and a herring salad sandwich on fresh rolls.

Later that day I went to the Arbol farmers market in Paonia which was a festival of color. I was specifically seeking mushrooms.

I came home with three kinds of mushrooms and a mushroom-honey liver tonic, four tomatoes, a dozen ears of corn, roasted green chilis, and a bowl full of Indian supper. The next day it was a plain and simple, delicious tomato sandwich for lunch.

Thursday it was time to make the long-anticipated Gourmet tuna-noodle casserole. I chopped up the brown oyster mushrooms and sautéed them with an onion, then added soy sauce and sherry.

For the topping, I used the last few slices of sourdough to make breadcrumbs and tossed them with grated cheddar and set it aside.

I cooked a quick roux for a white sauce, added one can of tuna and the mushroom mixture to it, tossed in the cooked noodles, spread the mix into the ceramic dish, and topped with the breadcrumb mix and baked it.

It was delicious, not exactly simple, and almost as much trouble as it was worth.

The next day, lunch was a smoked salmon club with refrigerator pickles and another market tomato.

Saturday was Zoom Cooking with Amy, and I had asked to make ravioli. She chose a recipe with mushroom filling, and I chose the Lion’s Mane for mine.

Sizzling butter just because.

Minced shallots in the butter, then the mushrooms, then a splash each of Vermouth and cream. We made our filling ahead, and mixed the pasta dough and rested it in the fridge, so when we got together in the evening all we had to do was make the raviolis and a simple sauce by simmering tomatoes in brown butter.

I’ve only used the pasta roller a couple of times but I’m so grateful for the gift of it. I think making pasta dough daunted me, but this recipe was so easy and worked so well, and it was so much fun, that I’ll be making a lot more fresh pasta.

I lacked the right tool for the job to cut the pasta—I was sure I had a pasta cutting wheel but couldn’t find it—but I found a reasonable facsimile in the potato crinkle cutter. I froze some, and the rest cooked in about four minutes. By the next time I try ravioli I’ll have the right tool for the job. Practice makes perfect, or close enough.

I only used half the dough last night, and probably should have frozen the rest but didn’t think about whether the raw egg in it would be ok overnight in the fridge. This evening I took a chance and rolled the remainder, then took the adventurous step of attaching the fettuccini cutter to the Kitchenaid. I’m grateful for the drying rack, too. Tomorrow I’ll bag up my dried noodles and figure out the best way to store them. I’m grateful for a great week in the kitchen.

Homemade Tortillas

Dec1

While I am in general grateful for Mexican food, it would be pretentious to claim that’s what I make. I’m grateful for the hodgepodge meals I make that are inspired by Mexican cuisine. I’m grateful to finally be getting the hang of homemade tortillas. They’re a quick and easy base for almost any kind of toppings. Yesterday I had a hankering for something like huevos rancheros to try my homemade salsa verde on, but no tortillas; so I whipped up a batch with masa and warm water. But first I had to cook something like refried beans, so I mixed up an onion, garlic cloves and spices, a dried paprika pepper, and the last of the garden tomatoes with two cans of black beans, and cooked the mush down while I made corn tortillas.

Though I only had a supermarket egg and broke the yellow yolk trying the trendy method of cracking it flat on the counter instead of on the side of the pan, I approximated a semblance of classic huevos rancheros that satisfied my craving. The meal could have been improved only with a ripe avocado.

Philip delivered avocados, more sour cream, and a couple of other groceries this afternoon, and I enjoyed bean tacos for lunch. So simple, so delicious! I’m grateful today for Philip’s kindness, the luxury of simple, hearty food, the treasure of avocados in winter, and homemade corn tortillas.

The Joy of Each Breath

Feb9
I’m grateful for being able to breathe fresh, clean mountain air.

I’m grateful for every single breath, whether or not I’m aware of it, and I try to be aware of my breath many times during the day. Sometimes just a single breath, sometimes a few, sometimes for five minutes, or twenty-five, I focus on the sensation of the breath.

My friend Kim and I try to meditate spontaneously together once a day. One of us will text an invitation, and usually within a few minutes we’ve both settled somewhere quiet with a guided meditation, or just a silent timer set for five or ten minutes. “The joy of each breath” comes from a meditation we did this evening, led by Peter Harper, The Drunken Monk, on Insight Timer. The joy of each breath. It really is a joy when you can breathe fully, and take a moment to pause, notice, and really feel a single inhalation-exhalation cycle. Or give yourself ten minutes to truly allow yourself to relax, release, let go. Relaxation is a skill not well known nor practiced in this predominant culture. It’s so much more than kicking back on the couch with a beer watching TV, or sitting on the deck with a martini savoring sunset, or having a great time pursuing any kind of sensory stimulation. It’s letting go of all that, resting in the stillness of nowhere to go, nothing to do. Each breath really is a miracle.

I’m grateful I had shells and homemade sauce in the pantry, ricotta and kale in the fridge. It was a good day to make stuffed shells, sprinkled with a little mozzarella because everything is better with cheese. The recipe came from a Level 4 Vegan cookbook, Skinny Bitch in the Kitch. I fried the onions in bacon grease and used real cheese, but technically a vegan could make this delicious meal, which proportionizes readily for freezing.
Three for lunch (these are gigantic shells), and two fives for later.

Because several people asked for the Cheesos recipe, here are the sources of inspiration for both Cheesos and the Shells. I’m not entirely digital – I still love actual cookbooks, and have a few reliable go-tos besides my own 3×5 card file, a folder of printed recipes, my mother’s lifetime recipe notebook, and two staples that forged my appetite: mom relied on The Joy of Cooking, and the Colonel swore by Fannie Farmer’s Boston Cooking-School bible. I’m also grateful for cookbooks!

Cheesos recipe from the 21-Day Ketogenic Weight Loss Challenge book.
The “NEW” Fannie Farmer, ©1951 — it’s older than I am!

Sometimes during the day, after I notice something like these cookbooks, and pay attention, and take stock of the luxuries in my life, I take a deep breath – a big sigh – and am suddenly aware of this breath – and then this breath – and I recognize the astonishing chain of events that led to my being here, in this moment, holding this cookbook that is older than I am. Each breath is a miracle. Oxygen is the real drug; breathing, the ultimate high.