Night thoughts.

I'm currently lying in bed between my snoring husband & our not quite sleeping but drowsy nursing baby. Our determinedly sleep resisting baby. 

I feel like I've spent the last four hours trying to get Iris to sleep. 

Look how sleepy she is. 

I think I have. I have had almost no me time today. One of those days where Owen came home from work & Iris immediately began needing me & only me & so the evening went. 

I struggle in my heart at these times, because she's so wonderful & just when I'm getting the most annoyed at being stuck lying next to her in bed endlessly nursing, she's just so sweet & it's amazing really that she wants & needs me like this. 

It's wonderful, it's the most amazing thing I've ever done. Still sometimes I struggle with the patience to resist my desire to just go into the kitchen & drink some wine & listen to music & cook dinner the way I used to. 

Sigh. It was again one of those nights. Still trying out the early bedtime, so it was  just a long cycle of nurse for an hour, sleep for 20 minutes, wake up & scream, repeat. I wish her dad could console her, but he really can't. 

We had an excellent day until evening. Fun boob group, successful downtown trip to buy stamps at the post office, & duck pants & striped overalls for Iris at the Salvation Army,  & an overpriced hot chocolate at Greenfield Coffee for me. And a nice walk with the hound at home after. It was in the high 40s today, not bad for Western Mass in December. We got out of the house, we accomplished things, we hung out with cool mamas.

But I had high productivity hopes for the evening that sure didn't pan out. 

The positives: I took a lovely shower during Iris' first short nap. I started to cook dinner during her second. 

During the nursing her to sleep stretches I've been rereading "The Time Traveler's Wife", which is one of my very favorite books & why Iris was almost named Clare ( don't tell). 

I find it's difficult for me to read when I'm also tending to Iris, but I can reread my favorite books, they are like old friends. So rereading Time Traveler's Wife for the hundredth time is nice. 

I did make dinner, I made a turkey & Brussel sprouts curry from the endless pile of Thanksgiving leftovers, served over wild rice blend made with turkey stock & sour cream & sriracha.

Owen just ate leftover pizza from last nights' creative use of Thanksgiving leftovers,

but despite the baby related time constraints, I actually felt like cooking. I needed to. 

(Isn't this still a food blog?)

So by reading & cooking I got to feel like myself a tiny bit, I guess that's the moral of this story? 

And my sweet girl is now asleep & my husband is snoring loudly in my ear. 

Now Owen is talking in his sleep about beer prices. Iris seems totally out, except most likely not if I leave the bed. I am of course totally wide awake.

Hello world. 

Butternut Squash #4/5: With Red Lentils In Soup (In The Dark).

10.29.2011: Butternut Squash Week #4/5:

 Butternut squash & red lentil soup, with homemade chicken stock, cumin, ginger paste, crushed chilis & curry powder, & onions, garlic, & yukon gold potatoes, served with Boursin, eaten in the dark two nights in a row during the Great October New England Snowstorm/Power outage.

It was a few days before Halloween in Massachusetts, on a Saturday. A potential couple of feet of snow is bizarrely predicted. We get the dog walked & head back to the house, snow starts falling around 2pm, & I decide to make soup, just in case the power goes out later & we lose a lot of food & our ability to cook (electric stove). Good call. Power went out around six that night & didn't return for two days. We ate the soup Saturday night by candle light, & Sunday night by candle light once more after reheating it in the snowy driveway over the propane burner for our turkey fryer.
Thank god my husband is a redneck, with a blow torch (to make coffee) & a propane burner to reheat soup & cook eggs in the driveway. & for a huge pot of delicious soup. & for Cheezits which accompanied Sunday nights dinner & are one of my biggest guilty pleasures. When in difficult times, go to Cheezits. These are the things you are thankful for when you have no light, heat, or stove & your work doesn't tell you work is cancelled so you have to drive there to find out. Blah. Did I mention I love Cheezits?

The soup is itself, pretty basic: onions & garlic simmered in butter/small amount of bacon, add ginger paste, cumin, & curry powder, crushed chili peppers, salt & pepper, then add chicken stock, red lentils, & potatoes, bring to a boil, add cubed butternut squash, simmer for the rest of the afternoon while it snows, conveniently in a cast iron enamel pot that can also work on a outside propane flame.

My classic red lentil ginger soup, really, but with butternut squash! Because it was still The Great Butternut Squash Food Challenge Of 2011.  (Theme: classic recipes of mine, with butternut squash). Also, we eat lentil soup during natural disasters in this family!  

It's just that during some of them, the power actually goes out.

It was dark, but we managed to eat well, & the hound dog & tiger kitten kept us warm. Whiskey helped too.

Butternut Squash #3: In Thai Green Curry With Chicken.

More with the foods, & the making of them, & the continuation of The Great Butternut Squash Food Challenge Of 2011.  

10.28.2011: Butternut Squash Week #3:

 Thai Green Curry with coconut milk, butternut squash, chicken & our garden thai chilis & lemongrass, over basmati rice.

(Note: I did not skip Butternut Squash #2, I just didn't finish the illustrations in order. Not how I roll, numerical order). 

So, another classic recipe of mine, continuing the theme. Curries, all curries, are very high up there for me when it comes to comfort food.  I cook a curry at least three night a week, & I do it differently every time. I've never added winter squash, but it worked well added to a basic version of my Thai Green Curry.

To start, make rice, to be authentic use jasmine, but we tend to buy rice in 20lb bags so usually just have white basmati & some brown short grain on hand. Roasted a split butternut squash in the oven. In a heavy duty sauce pan, start cooking onions, garlic, & chopped chilis (lucky we grew some beautiful thai chilis in the garden this year) in coconut oil. Add some green thai curry paste (I use this one), some curry powder, chopped lemongrass (which we also grew in the garden & currently still have growing in a pot in our kitchen), fresh chopped ginger root, shrimp paste, sriracha & fish oil. I used about a half of a habanero from our garden too, but adjust the spiciness to taste, obviously. I prefer crazy spicy. Throw in chicken pieces & potatoes, make sure they get thoroughly coated with the coconut oil seasoning mixture. Add two cans of coconut milk, then added chopped pre-roasted butternut squash. Cook until squash pretty much dissolves into the coconut milk, serve over rice, & eat. Perfect. 

Note: many of the ingredients in this curry, & also the basic ingredients of my life, are purchased here, at the International Market in Hadley.  

I have been shopping there for about ten years & even though they still feel they need to warn us about food white people won't like, too fishy, too spicy,  (yet we do), I love it there. 

The true genius of curries is that they are so flexible. I made a decent one with chicken thighs, broccoli, 1/2 & 1/2, various spices, chili peppers & potatoes in a cast iron wok the other night exhausted after a long work day & without grocery shopping & I'd rather eat that than most restaurant food & it took very little time or effort, in fact, it really cheered me up.

There in is the beauty of food. 

This particular curry was delicious, by the way, I definitely recommend the squash addition.

Asparagus City. Population: Lentil Soup.

What? Ok, I am taking liberties with my titles. The asparagus has nothing to do with lentil soup. Nothing at all.  Except for being part of my early morning random train of thought when I was first writing this post.
Maybe I have mentioned-I am ready to eat fresh food. I can really get into the whole winter thing-big heavy meat dishes roasted in the oven, ducks & lamb, pot roasts & whole chickens, curries, the "coming in from the cold Sunday dinner" food that one doesn’t even think about in August. Last year we were a lot better at preserving our garden food than ever before, so all winter there were also little bursts of summer goodness-canned salsa & tomato sauce, green tomato pickles, pickled jalapenos, homemade chili paste & habanero hot sauce.

But now it’s May & I want to taste different things. We are having a rainy spring week, so last night it was back to soup (curried red lentil) & coziness but even my taste in soup is changed as spring progresses- a little less meat (although by no means none! hells no!), more flavor, more brightness. I topped the lentil soup with fried ginger root, herbed goat chevre & arugula pesto, & daydreamed about my future thai basil patch in the garden & when that will be my garnish.

 5.16.2011: Red Lentil Soup.

 A few notes regarding this soup (as this is a food blog after all): Adding the arugula pesto was kind of a crazy idea, but we had some leftover from this meal. We keep ample homemade chicken stock on hand in the freezer (when I roast a chicken I always make stock-chicken fat is a terrible thing to waste), & I personally find that in lentil soup, a good chicken stock is essential. & the fried ginger root-well, I learned a few things from my more than ten years of subscribing to Martha Stewart Living & that lentil soup garnish was one of them. That & the fact that an immersion blender is nice to have on hand when making soup. Thank you, Martha.

So the "food grown in the ground outside relatively near where I live" season is only just beginning. What do we have? Well, here in the Pioneer Valley we do have local Hadley asparagus for a very brief, delightful season, & I realize that forgetting to give it a nod would be a terrible error.

Fresh asparagus is best super simple, so this is more of a celebration than a recipe. Olive oil, garlic, salt & pepper. That is all you need, well a good cast iron skillet helps too.
We had it over pappardelle noodles with cheese. We had it with a fried egg on top. We had it with pumpkin seeds thrown into the mix. We had it with grilled eggplant in a burrito made up from the burrito topping leftovers.

May 2011: Hadley Asparagus Season. 

 What else? The leftover lentil soup made a very good lunch. It is well after 9pm & I have yet to eat my own dinner tonight, so I should think about that. Walt prefers that we NOT eat vegetables, but we do anyway. I like spring rain & am not sick of it yet; I am however sick of people complaining about the rain. IT ALWAYS RAINS A LOT IN MAY HERE. Let it ago. At least the temperature is remaining steadily above 50. This date on various years marks the day of both my parents' birth & of my grandparents wedding anniversary. So May 17th is a pretty cool day.
Some miscellaneous thoughts from EnD. Hey, why have a blog if I can't share this stuff sometimes? Eat your asparagus.

Winter 2010, In Random Dinners.

I'm still in a similar mental place to my last post, still feeling archivey, still hiding out in our room, still digging around in the old sketchbooks & rediscovering memories through drawings. Winter is still totally kicking my ass, so my motivation for complicated projects & exciting new recipes is low.

What has been keeping me going throughout these last (hopefully) weeks of horrible snowy icy slushy winter (spring! gardens! soon!) has been just the appreciation of our everyday life here, that we make time to cook & eat dinner together even when it's complicated, even when we hate each other, that we collect objects we like & live in a space that however cluttered & messy looks like us, that we have sweet sweet animals, good kitchen stuff & a cozy home.

Last winter was our first few months of really living together, so these pages of my sketchbook are especially sweet to me.

It is really feeling right now that Winter 2011 is never ever going to end, so to give us hope, some moments from Winter 2010, which did end eventually, becoming this.

1.11.10: Black Bean Chicken Chili.

1.13.2010: Scallops & Noodles.

1.19.10: Sausages & Peppers & Spinach & Whiskey Shots.

1.12.2010: Thyme & Shallot Salmon Fillet, With Broccoli & Cheese.

3.7.10: Weird Curry Stir-Fry.

Sometimes I just want to leave the pictures here by themselves, because to me, the specific details alone mean so much.

We ate this on this date, & it looked like this. That comforts me, when life seems bizarre & overwhelming, I guess just like actually cooking food does.

Would anyone care about that? Does anyone care anyway? When I was in art school I kept a very specific food I ate journal in my sketchbook, maybe I should just start posting those.

But I love those pages, when I look back, even as I laugh at how pretentious I was. Sometimes I can feel the specific moment, smell it, taste it, just from reading those lists.

Damn this blog is getting verbal!

I'll try to dig myself out of this hole soon, the potential of this sort of meal will help, but I have a few more of these style posts planned for the next month or so, then it's garden time.

Saint Patrick's Day, Corned Beef, Cabbage, Beer, & All That Stuff That One Does.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day from EnD. Whatever that means. On one hand, I hate fake bullshit forced holiday crap (mostly as experience at work, i.e.last Mardi Gras) but on the other hand, I love love love bullshit holiday crap too, traditions, decorations, colours & most of all foods. What can I say? I love being festive. Whatever the random holiday, I can get down with it.

& Most importantly, Stop & Shop had a really good sale on corned beef, & I scored some free cabbage & potatoes from work. CORNED BEEF & CABBAGE=SOLD. I had none of the traditional seasonings on hand, so when boiling the corned beef added to the water some dijon mustard, some wasabi paste, peppercorns, garlic, red wine & an onion. Later came the cabbage & potatoes. Worked out pretty excellent.

3.14.2010: Corned Beef & Cabbage (not St. Patrick's Day but it was a rainy Sunday & what the hell do we care). The potatoes (yellow) sat in a nest of cabbage leaves with tons of butter (Irish butter!). It was lovely.

3.15.2010. The next day happened to be my day off. Hence thinly sliced corned beef & cabbage sandwiches, with Hellman's (the only mayonnaise as far as I'm concerned) & good whole grain dijon mustard. Condiments! I love them! It rained again (hello March in Massachusetts), so a hearty sandwich in the kitchen was cozy & awesome.
still 3.15.2010. The broth created from random refrigerator contents turned out to be so good we wanted to save it. As another chilly rainy March day progressed (I love these raw New England spring days really, but they do make me want warm food) it seemed clearly soup was next. The C & B stock plus dry white beans were combined & then we searched the pantry & fridge & came up with sweet potatoes, a package of frozen mixed veggies, garlic, an onion, & white rice. To which was added more corned beef & cabbage. EXCELLENT white bean stew, some of which is now still living in the freezer. YAY LETFOVERS.
3.16.2010. One more night of leftover corned beef, in a tandoori curry sauce with a free scavenged from work red bell pepper & an eggplant, over white rice. I thought this meal was a good knod to the current U.K., myself.
What is the moral of this tale? LEFTOVERS. I am nearly one half Irish, & I can tell you being Irish is about getting drunk & making really good use of leftovers. So for St. Patrick's day, I ate a $4 cut of corned beef for four days, & ate well. oh & I think I mentioned beer in the title of this post? We did recently purchase a 30 rack of PBR, so that was indeed drunk during the creation of these meals. I'm actually too white trash Mass Irish to afford actual Guiness, you know. I work in a godamn grocery store, people (like a good Irish giorl from downtown New Bedford).

What have we learned?

Less than week until spring. I bought more seeds today...green zebra tomatoes, basil, purple beans. What do I love more than cooking & drawing food? Cooking & drawing food that I grew...look forward to Eating & Drawing & Planting in the future.

Dinners at 133 #1: Tuna Steak, Curried Sweet Potatoes, Couscous.

As I mentioned, I'm cleaning up my winter sketchbook archives, & in the process of doing so, I found a lot of sadly ignored drawings, just everyday dinners, no grand plan but usually delicious, & always with a story behind, so here you go, what we ate here at 133 this winter, on the nonholiday, nonspecial occasion work nights, Part One:

12.5.2009: Tuna Steak with Curried Sweet Potatoes & Couscous.

This was a snowy night last December, the first of the winter I believe, & Owen drove me home from work on his break because it was snowing so hard & then went back to close, & I started cooking while enjoying the indescrible coziness of cooking dinner for someone you love while it's snowing. Some frozen tuna steaks, seared in a pan with garlic, & sweet potatoes simmered in a can of coconut milk with a jar of Thai curry paste, over couscous. Some smoked mozzarella grated on top. owen returned from closing at work. We ate while the snow fell. SNOW DAY. (doesn't winter seem so much better now that it's nearly over?)

Cauliflower Curry, November Nights.

New England Fall Dinner: Cauliflower Curry.

Coming home from work on rainy November nights,

this is what I like to start cooking

(to save my soul).

Then the whole house smells warm & spicy, & the fact that it's chilly & dismal outside begins to seem almost like a good thing,

because it makes the inside just so perfect.

Want to truly appreciate these late fall Massachusetts nights?

Here's how.

FIRST, come home, turn on your best lamps

(good lighting is very important in winter)

pour a glass of red wine, & find some good music

(I made this to the Mountain Goats' Heretic Pride)

then,

Saute an onion, garlic, serrano chili peppers in butter & olive oil (heavier on the butter), add some curry paste (here I'm used Patak's Garam Masala, Hot) & salt & pepper & the various spices that make up basic curry (ie tumeric, cumin, coriander, chili, etc) to personal taste, add cauliflower & potatoes & a can of chickpeas, stir, add enough 1/2 & 1/2 to cover everything, bring to a boil, add spinach, turn down to low, simmer for a while while the house starts to smell warmer & warmer

(hells yes WARM is a smell)

Make whatever rice you prefer (I prefer jasmine or white basmati with this),

& serve with & naan & hopefully chutney

(I actually didn't have any, shame on me).

Best eaten cuddled up under a blanket on the couch in the company of a kitten, maybe watching Twin Peaks.

(if you're into that)

Conclusion: this meals also creates a whole lot of leftovers if you do it right,

so I've been eating it all week.

Good times = week of curry.

But I just ran out, so gonna have to cook something tonight.

Stay tuned for that, oh & everything else I've eaten & drawn in the way too long span of time since I've last posted.

Lamb Week Part #1.

The current issue of Saveur Magazine (aka my favourite magazine that is not a supermarket tabloid) which I finally broke down & purchased is the "Why Lamb Rules" Issue. (I agree)

(when I read food magazines, which I do incessantly, I rarely READ them, I just gaze longingly at the pictures, & then I invent my own recipes in my head.) Back to today.

A rainy way too freezing Sunday in October in New England, & a crappy day at the grocery store. Hence time to make myself a nice Sunday dinner, & begin LAMB WEEK 2009.

A reasonably inexpensive lamb chop, simmered in cippolini onions, garlic, olive oil, butter, red wine, a purple carrot, a new yellow potato & frozen peas.

plus, a few teaspoons of garam masala.

& on the side, oyster mushrooms roasted in olive oil.

(doesn't really make sense but I needed to use these mushrooms,

& it actually tasted ok as a combination).

All in all, a weirdly 21st century British dinner. I think I've been reading too much current British fiction lately.

A lamb chop with peas, carrots, potatoes, onions, but in a curry sauce,

with Patak's Extra Hot Mango Pickle.

& Bread Euphoria challah bread (for the Jewish element)

& butter (for the BUTTER element) & yes, those oyster mushrooms.

Apparently I am making a Melissa a rack of lamb later in the week. 

!!!!!!

HINT: It's gonna involve bacon. OMG piglets & lambs together at last. 

ADORABLE & DELICIOUS.