Good Friends

My friend John and his wife Lisa have just recently welcomed little Ellie Nozomi "Hope" Suzuki into the world. Healthy and happy, she is already home and making friends with her big brother Baxter. I can only hope that we have a similarly easy transition with our two babies.

On the topic of things that pair together well, I have a very easy - embarrassingly easy, actually - recipe that pairs pork loin with cranberries, a match made in heaven.

Ingredients
1-3 lb. boneless rolled pork loin roast
salt & pepper
1-2 TB olive oil
16 oz. can whole-berry cranberry sauce
1/4 cup honey
1 TB orange peel
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg


Preheat oven to 375o and position rack in the center of the oven. Heat olive oil in roasting pan over med. high burner. Rinse and dry pork loin; coat with salt and pepper. Brown pork loin in roasting pan evenly, about 3 mins. per side. Remove from heat and add remaining ingredients; stir together. Put lid or foil over roasting pan and cook in oven until meat thermometer reads 160o, about 30 - 40 mins. depending on the size of pork loin. Let stand 10 minutes before slicing. Makes very good left-overs for sandwiches.

Jayce and Cosette, at the only point in time where they were the same size.

It lasted for about one hour, then J hit another growth spurt.

Frankie's Latest Trick

The dog's latest trick is not so much of a skill as it is an annoying relapse into puppyhood. Somehow he's decided he's had it with going to the bathroom outside, and will go in the house whenever the mood strikes. Especially right after having been walked. Clearly there are issues going on in that grapefruit sized brain of his but whatever is causing it, it means we have to go through remedial housebreaking training. Joy. Just what I wanted to do at 34wks pregnant in freezing weather. Anyone have any tips on getting him to poop on command? Or reasons why he doesn't associate being on the leash with going to the bathroom?

Meeyuk-Gook, beta version

I only recently became aware of this soup through my friend Jennie’s nail salon. Jennie is Korean, but was adopted by a lovely German-American couple and raised in upstate New York. Suffice to say she did not develop a love of seafood there, something that the manicurists have a hard time accepting along with the fact that she doesn't speak Korean. When they found out that she was nursing her new baby, they insisted on giving her a container of this soup as well as some seaweed for making more. I ended up becoming the lucky beneficiary of their largesse due to the fact that I actually really like seaweed. Plus I seem to recall seaweed soup as being a traditional new mother staple for the women of the western islands off Ireland. I have a feeling that recipe goes more like, “Boil some seawater, then add some kelp and diced potatoes.” Not something you want to try to replicate when your local beach is the Long Island Sound and that stuff floating in the water may be seaweed or it may be toilet paper.

I checked with my friend Nicole, who is Korean-American, and she informed me that the soup is the number one food of choice for new mothers as well as students, children and the elderly because of its high iron and mineral content. Allegedly it is easy to make and keeps for a few days, so I thought it would be good to try this out ahead of the breastfeeding period and get it practiced to perfection so that even a sleep-deprived brain could throw it together.

Making this soup was my first foray back into cooking Korean food after a long hiatus. I do like eating Korean food, but making it puts me on very shaky ground. There aren’t as many reference points to the familiar as I would like, except when making pajon pancakes, which are very similar to omelettes. This point was driven home to me even more clearly after I visited two different local oriental markets, Kam Sen in White Plains and New Golden Village on Central Park Ave in Scarsdale. I had loose instructions on how to make the soup from Nicole and her mother, plus some vague recipes found on the internet, all of which were different, but none of them had specific brand names for the seaweed, something that turned out to be important later on. Maybe it was just these two markets, but I was able to find every type of Asian cuisine except for Korean. Thai soup stocks, Vietnamese fish sauce, Philippine coconut breads, Japanese jelly candies, Mystery “Jane-Jane” brand dried fish snacks that looked more like cat treats and Chinese everything, but no aisles of Korean products. Hmmm.

After some aimless wandering, I left New Golden Village with some New Year’s Rice cakes, which ended up not tasting nearly as good as they looked, an economy sized bottle of Tamari Soy Sauce and some pork & mushroom egg rolls. The egg rolls were a good call since they provided lunch for two days. Kam Sen was even more overwhelming, as it is twice the size of NGV, and my visit there was preceded by a trip to the DMV, always a frightening and exhausting experience. I ended up leaving Kam Sen with a coconut bun and a jar of powdered fish, the former purchased mainly because I was glad to find something I recognized and the latter purchased mainly because of the juvenile reaction I had to the brand name. Just visiting the stores made me tired, so I put off the actual soup making until today.

I started by soaking the seaweed I had in a bowl of water, as the one consistency found in all the recipes was to soak the seaweed ahead of time. What I did not count on was that I apparently had some sort of instant seaweed, which came to me via Jenny’s manicurist. Failure to understand Korean packaging strikes again! I put the first failure behind me and moved on to the next step, mincing three cloves of garlic and dicing the 0.97ths of a pound of flank steak I had into small cubes. The recipes all called for ½ lb of flank steak, but the store doesn’t sell packages that small, and I figured better to use it all than let it go to waste. I then sautéed everything in sesame oil in a stock pot until the meat turned grey/brown. Afterwards I added as much of the seaweed as I could (it was very gloppy and falling apart at that point), two diced green onions, one tablespoon of dried fish powder and a heap of salt. This was then cooked further with a bit of water until I added the rest of the water the seaweed was soaking in, about four cups, and brought everything to a boil and allowed it to simmer. I wasn’t too worried about the seaweed water having sand in it since clearly this was pre-processed seaweed.

The soup has now been simmering for thirty minutes, and I have to say, it is pretty spicy. Plus there is a tell-tale reddish tinge to the oil floating on the surface of the soup, which is odd since I don’t remember adding any chiles or hot sauce to the mixture. Now I am wondering if the seaweed or the fish stock had chiles added ahead of time. Ah. I see. It’s in the fish powder. Those sneaky Thai cooks. They have to make everything spicy.

Okay, well, the seaweed isn’t in identifiable strips, it’s more of a puree at this point and the spice is too much for my heartburn-y pregnant gullet. This may have to be the test batch that gets tossed. Shoot. Luckily I still have a month and a half to practice. Either that or start calling local Korean restaurants to see if I can get this soup as a take-out order by the gallon. I leave you with my friend Nicole’s recipe – anyone who can make this soup please send me digital photographs of the products so the functionally illiterate (i.e., me) can find the necessary ingredients.


(Nicole began her email to me by explaining why it will be awhile before this soup is necessary for her to start making…)

DUDE, my dad wrote in my holiday card, "This is the year of the golden pig, a very good year, children born of this year will lead successful prosperous lives"...and I was like, “Uh, Dad, it’s not happening this year okay?” And then he's like, “But not next year, it is year of the horse, a very horrible year to have children”.....then I was like, “Well looks like you might not have grandkids until 2009 then”.....and he wasn't very happy with that....

Ingredients
1 long bag of dried seaweed
1/2lb flank steak cut into cubes
2-3 cloves garlic, minced or ground into a paste
2-3 TB sesame oil
2-3 stalks of green onion, green parts diced
2-3 TB Soy Sauce or Salt
4-5 cups water

Put the seaweed in a bowl of cold water to soak for at least one hour. Rinse and cut the seaweed well, removing any sand and dirt. When I was little I liked to sort through some of the pieces, there's this one hard stem like piece that I used to hate and I would cut it out....anyways, my mom would rinse the now re-hydrated seaweed at least 4 times through, then you cut it down into more bite size pieces and set aside. Heat the sesame oil in a large stock pot over med-high heat. Add garlic and beef, stirring just until beef is browned, approx. 3-5mins. Add the seaweed, soy sauce or salt and ¼ cup water and cook for an additional minute or two. This provides the tasty base for the broth itself. There is a certain soup base soy sauce that they sell in the Korean stores that you add for more taste/flavor, if not just use sea salt. I think my mom said it’s the Haitai brand. (I didn’t find any Korean soup stocks, only Japanese ones) Then add the rest of the water and simmer for about thirty minutes to an hour. Just keep the soup at a low simmer; the longer you simmer the more flavorful the broth gets. When you're almost ready to serve, my mom adds some sliced green onions on top.

It’s really quite easy to make, probably 15 -20 min. to prep the ingredients then like 5-10 minutes to bring it all together, then just watching it as it simmers, and checking on the broth flavor.....

I like to add rice to the soup and eat it with kimchee....I can eat it all day long for days....but I've never had to, let alone eat it for weeks…

Well Nicole, I will let you know if I ever do make it the right way and manage to eat it for one day first. Then we’ll see about eating it for a month. Thanks for the invaluable head start girlfriend!

Seaweed Soup

Ok, haven't added anything in like, ages and ages, but that's mostly due to tiredness and blah and who wants to read that. But I will promise that there will be a recipe for Seaweed Soup up here soon, since that is what I am supposed to live on for the first month after delivery. Thanks to my friend Nicole and her mom, I have the blueprints, now all that remains is hammering out the details. In the meantime, I have been eating enough doughnuts that I wouldn't be at all surprised to see my newborn daughter coming out covered in powdered sugar instead of vernix. Cold weather and donuts just go hand in hand, I guess!

Idiot Dog Owners

I am struggling right now to get back to sleep after having a nasty confrontation with a stupid neighbor of mine yesterday. Long story short, she has two dogs, one of which is aggressive, neither of which listen to her. Her dog barked and lunged at the end of his leash towards Frankie and me, and when I asked her to control her dog as I am 8months pregnant and not interested in breaking up a fight, she asked me if my dog was aggressive. This while her dog is barking at me, snapping and baring his teeth. My dog was calmly walking by my side. I tried to walk away from her, upon which she either dropped the other dog's leash or he pulled out of her hand. Naturally he didn't come when called over five times, and was much more interested in following me home. Stupid dog owner kept coming towards me with aggressive dog, then yelled at me for walking away because she needed to get her other dog's leash. She still somehow feels that I am at fault here, despite the fact that her one dog was clearly (to me anyway) about to attack us and the other one apparently doesn't even recognize his name let alone come when called. I was told, "This dog doesn't bite" and "He's been around you before" to which I responded, "There's a first time for everything and I don't want to be the one to help you realize that" and "Yes, and he's done this everytime."

Why oh why are people so stupid about their dogs? Why can't they all just stay on their side of the street and leave me alone? Why do they think their dogs speak English in complete sentences? Why must they all own retractable leashes? How can they possibly confuse straining at a leash and barking wildly with friendly behavior?

Most importantly though, Why am I not allowed to shoot owner, dog or both?

Tube Cake Boogie

One of our joint Christmas Presents this year was a sponge cake given to us by our very kind Japanese next-door neighbors. In all honesty, it was in a box, so I had no idea the box actually contained a cake. I suspected a thin bottle of rice wine or something else instead. I only just now opened it in the midst of getting the Christmas stuff put away and discovered that it was in fact a cake. No frosting, no decorations, no flavoring really, just cake. It's cake as interpreted by a Zen Buddhist monk -

"When you have stripped away the chocolate frosting, icing flowers and sparkle candies, then only the true soul of the cake can remain." The consistency is pretty nice, the taste is pretty nice but being an American I can't help but feel like there should be a cream filling in the center. Maybe I am just a decadent Westerner after all.

Post-Christmas Fall-out

Christmas was extra lovely this year. Everyone seemed to be sprinkled with Good Behavior Pixie Dust, the weather was positively balmy and aside from a snafu with Red Envelope I managed to get everyone's gift purchased and wrapped with time to spare. Naturally there was a flurry of baking activities, none of which got photographed, but all of which turned out just tops. In no particular order, the baking menu included:

Cranberry Pistachio Biscotti dipped in white chocolate

Cappuchino Biscotti with hazelnuts and semi-sweet chocolate chips

Orange Almond Biscotti dipped in milk chocolate

A double batch of Mexican Wedding Cookies that were my personal faves

Butter Shape Cookies

Mock Mince Pie with cream cheese crust

Mini Lemon Chess heart shaped tart made from left-over pie crust dough

Cinnamon Pecan Sticky Buns

BBQ flavored doggie biscuits

I think that's it. It certainly felt like a lot more than just that at the time but now looking at the list it doesn't seem like that big a deal. I did split it up over the course of a week and none of it was too onerous. Littlest effort for biggest reward has to go to the dog biscuits of course since the doggies are always appreciative of any and all culinary gestures in their direction. Frankie even rewarded me with a Happy Feet dance reaction to them, which was a huge compliment.

Biggest pain in the rear treat that will probably never be made again award goes to the Sticky Buns. Several hours of rising, fussiness and stickiness. They were good, but overall, not really worth the massive amount of effort involved. I was using an America's Test Kitchen recipe though, and they can be a perfectionistic lot. I did not use a metal pan, a pizza stone or allow the buns to rise a second time for 1.5hrs, just 30mins, but it all turned out ok. I put the extras in the freezer. Who knows how that will work out but I couldn't bring myself to just pitch them after all the chaos involved in making them.

Everything else was definitely a repeat, including the Mock Mince pie which turned out to not contain any beef fat or ox heart or anything else nasty, just raisins and apples, and was quite nice. Dad suggested next year that I not use honey but use sugar instead and to up the brandy level, ho, ho, ho. I think whatever makes him happiest is ok with me.

The kitchen has mostly returned to a semi-liveable state, if only looking a bit tired. What can I say, I am tired. Luckily it is now onto the new year, and with all the good intentioned resolutions of fresh fruit, flax seed smoothies and soy milk that it brings. Time to retire the baking pans until next Christmas!

Bread and Jam Pudding meets Jane Goodall

So tonight I discovered a great recipe for using up stale bread and found a very cool new Google feature called Google Earth. Maybe you've heard of one, maybe you've heard of both, but both of them have me pretty excited.

Google earth takes blogging to a whole new level, showing you just where on the globe the person writing is sitting. Look around here: http://earth.google.com/tour/thanks-win4.html to download the app (very quick install) and the bookmarks for the websites that are already trying it. Aside from the Jane Goodall Institute's blog there are other sites on the Wirefly X PRIZE cup which if you're an aeronautical engineering geek should be exciting. The Discovery Channel has a site, as does the Da Vinci Code guys. Get a look at this cool tool before it becomes overloaded with San Dimas High School Football Rulez!! type live feeds from your local junior high. I suppose unless it becomes something you can link MySpace to maybe that won't happen but for now it is still in its pure geek infancy. Anyone else remember the original Listserv discussion boards before they came up with IM? When people would actually reprimand other users for putting up advertising and correct grammar? No? Maybe it's just me then. I am sort of hoping to find Jane Goodall's official biography under the Christmas Tree this year, or barring that, a gift certificate to Barnes and Noble.

Along the lines of purism and childhood memories, I decided to make a simple bread pudding to get rid of some french bread from Saturday. Jamie Oliver has a fantastic one that I will not print verbatim in order to avoid copyright infringement. Much easier than it looks, and totally worth it. I thought I was full after dinner but I've now polished off a second helping (seen in the photo) and am contemplating a third. Plus it's made of eggs, which I normally hate, so it's a good way to get protein, right? Right? Right.

Ingredients: 4 eggs, 2 1/2cups milk, 1/2 cup bread crumbs, 3/4 cup + 2 TB sugar, 4 TB fruit jam, 1 tsp vanilla. Preheat oven to 300F. Separate 3 eggs. Combine yolks with remaining whole egg with whisk, then add milk, bread crumbs, vanilla and 1/4 sugar. Spread jam on bottom of baking dish (about pie plate capacity or little larger). I used more than 4 TB because I wanted to cover the bottom evenly. As it turns out this adds more liquid (duh) and so therefore you need to cook for longer but it didn't ruin anything. Pour egg yolk mixture over jam and bake in oven for 1hr or more until set and not wobbly in the middle. Beat egg whites until stiff, then add in remaining sugar. Cover custard with glossy, stiff egg whites and continue baking until meringue is set and lightly browned, 15-20 mins depending on surface area. Let cool before eating or you'll burn your mouth on the jam. Should serve 4 - 6 unless I'm in the house when it will serve 1 1/2 people. I am planning on saving this for breakfast tomorrow. It's eggs, bread and jam so tell me how it's not also good for breakfast? Oh and those two little brown blobs on the baking sheet are some left-over meringue that I made into cookies. After the custard is done, turn the oven up to 350 until it preheats, put blobs in and immediately lower heat to 250. Cook for 45mins or so. Make sure you use parchment paper or Silpat mats otherwise they'll just crack coming off the baking sheet.

Edited for clarity: The BREAD was used to make the BREAD CRUMBS via the Cuisinart, although you could just as easily cut it into cubes and do that instead.

MS Center on WNBC Early Morning News Show

Friends of mine who are involved with the NJ side of things MS related sent me this link. Be sure to program your TiVo's!

HUGE NEWS FOR THE MS CENTER AT HOLY NAME HOSPITAL!!!!!!

As you all know, Chris Cimino, WNBC-TV Meteorologist, has been one of our guardian angels since he became involved with our wonderful MS Center 4 years ago. Well now, he truly is our holiday angel. The great morning team at the Today Show, Rob Morrison, Darlene Rodriquez, Chris & Otis Livingston were all asked by the Today Show Producer, the wonderful Emily Raiber, to pick a charity to showcase for the holiday season that they felt was close to their heart. A charity that needs awareness, a charity that makes a difference in people's lives. Out of all the millions of needy organizations Chris picked the MS Center at Holy Name Hospital because he is truly amazed at what we do here! Chris, Emily and crew were here last Wednesday taping and it was such a special, emotional and honest interview. Even Chris got teary eyed! In case it ends up on the cutting room floor, Chris kissed Johanna on the cheek after she shared her incredible history of her life and her life at the Center!!!! We all know how special the MS Center is and how we make a difference in patients lives every day and now EVERYONE in the tri-state area will know!!!!!!!! Please tune in to Channel 4 next Tuesday, December 19th at 6:40AM to see the wonderful interview Chris did with our very own stars, June Halper, Susan Zurndorfer, Johanna Zurndorfer and Judee Rosenthal.

Entertain without strain

This is not so much a recipe, as it is a secret trick of caterers: no-one at parties pays attention to what the food tastes like, they only look at the plate. Spend 50% of your budget on your serving platters, 10% on food and 40% on booze. You can serve anyone frozen pigs in a blanket from a warehouse club if you put them on a pretty plate with fancy mustard in little bowl. Translate the name into French, Italian or Thai and you can get away with anything. Pigs in a blanket become Saucissons en Croute. Mini-quiches become, well, Quiche au Jambon (ham) / Bacon (duh) / Oignon (onion). Grilled chicken on wooden skewers with a dipping sauce of peanut butter mixed with soy sauce are Chicken Satays. Stick the non-chicken loaded end of the stick into a block of floral foam that you have put into a dish. Put plastic flowers or grass in first that are shorter than the satay sticks. Everyone likes shrimp cocktail, and you can buy a huge bag of pre-cooked frozen shrimp for next to nothing. Again, put it on shaved ice in a nice glass bowl and suddenly you're a genius. Take the sauce out of the jar and put it into something pretty. Make a cheese platter out of a cutting board with red & green grapes and those red cabbage leaves. Put strawberries on it even though people don't eat them when they're next to cheese.

You don't have to be a good cook to become known for good holiday parties. Just make sure there's enough booze for people to not notice the food, and be sure to throw out the boxes from the freezer section before the guests arrive. Have good music and pretty women in abundance. Follow the reheating directions on the boxes. Take a shower ahead of time. Enjoy the festivities but don't drive drunk! Happy Holidays everybody!

Apples, Oats, Almonds, Brown sugar and Cinnamon - that makes it healthy, right?

Apple crumble is very easy to make, and it makes a good dessert and a good breakfast. So make lots, and have two things covered at once. I thought I should throw in a picture of the finished product with a glass of orange juice just to emphasize that in fact it does make a nice breakfast treat. The original recipe can be found here, on the FlipFlopFlyin.com website, a lovely place to spend time if you haven't already discovered it. I spiffed it up by adding some rolled oats, sliced almonds and cinnamon to the topping and putting the crumble in individual baking dishes for portion control. You could also add raisins (ed. note: ewwww...) or use other fruits; it's a pretty forgiving recipe. Just be aware that fruit with liquid might need 1 or 2 TB's of flour mixed in with it to prevent it from getting soupy. Rhubarb & strawberries in the spring might be nice, or pears in the fall.

Topping:

1/3 cup flour

3 TB butter (1/2 stick or so)

3 TB brown sugar

1/3 cup rolled oats

handful sliced almonds

Combine flour, butter an' brown sugar in mixer or cuisinart. Stir in oats and almonds, unless you prefer them blended, then whizz away. Pre-heat the oven to 350F and coat the sides & bottom of your pan of choice with butter. Peel, core and cut up an apple or two depending on how big they are (you can also leave on the peel but add 1 tsp water to compensate if you do). Toss apple parts with cinnamon, schpritz of lemon juice and spoonful of sugar so they are equally coated and place in pan. Ungracefully dump topping over apple pieces without tamping it down. Bake in oven for 35mins or so until topping is nice and golden. Serve as is or with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, yogurt etc.

Overheard...

A friend travelling from NY to Florida today just told me about a most interesting cell phone conversation they overheard. Apparently they were seated near Ami James, owner of Miami Ink and cable-tv level celebrity and waiting for the same flight. In between signing autographs, Mr. James made time to have a phone conversation with an unidentified second party about some hot motorcycles available for sale. Did he forget that a)he is a recognizable personality and that b)he was discussing the purchase of stolen property? It never ceases to amaze me what kinds of conversations people will have out loud in public, especially celebrities. This same friend also had the (dis)pleasure of listening to Vince McMahon, head of the WWE wrestling federation, leave a startlingly pornographic and desperate voicemail for his girlfriend, again, in a very public location. I wonder if these people forget that they are famous for the period that they are on the phone. It certainly makes it easier to believe all those gossip columns that being, "We hear that..."

For the sake of your publicist's sanity, Ami, in the future try to keep those kinds of discussions limited to text messages. Not that someone couldn't break into your phone and read those if they really wanted to, but at least make it challenging.

5 Less Introspective things about me -

Ok, so when I wrote that other post it was probably too late at night, and i was taking myself just a bit too seriously. So here's 5 things you didn't know about me that aren't also likely to be topics of conversation on Oprah:

1) I have monkey toes. I can pick up anything I want with my feet, turn off the bathtub faucets, etc. I could even probably pick up a pen and write with it if I really wanted to.
2) My natural defense mechanism seems to be barfing. I throw up at the slightest provocation. I can't even get on an airplane without packing Bonine. The first sign of me having a cold is that I throw up. I throw up just thinking about roller coasters. However, I never get a fever. If I have an actual fever it probably means I'm near death.
3) I can wink really well. I can even walk around with one eye closed flat and the other wide open. The things you practice as a child.
4) I may be a hippie anti-gun person, but I am a very good shot with a .22 rifle. Very good.
5) I've met lots of famous people, but I was most impressed with Bill Gates. He was very normal. In fact, a little too normal. I kept looking at his hair and thinking, "The richest man in the world can't afford a $0.69 Ace comb?" He has very messy hair in person.

Other less introspective yet surprising things about me include my seeming failure to study for the approaching final exam that is motherhood. I spent my vacation reading time finishing Bones, by Douglas Ubelaker, a really fascinating collection of his observations and case studies as a forensic anthropologist. Did you know that bones burnt after they are dried will have a totally different cracking pattern than bones burnt with the flesh on? Death and its effects on the human body totally fascinate me. I was completely engrossed in this book the whole time I was in Mexico, and then I saw another pregnant woman reading by the pool. She had her "What to Expect" diary with her and another telephone-book sized tome on pregnancy and motherhood. She was actually writing in her diary. I don't think I've written in the diary since the first trimester ended. What is wrong with me? My rationalization/spin on this is that at least I won't be one of those crazy moms that makes their kids nuts fussing over them all the time. So maybe they'll have nightmares and messy hair, at least they won't feel like they're being micro-managed to death. Yep, keep telling yourself that chief...

Tagged!

I have been tagged! I am honored and blown away and totally confused all at the same time, all of which is compounded by the fact that it happened while I was out of the country for five days. I feel like Anthony Edwards in the first half of Gotcha! Suddenly my little game at pretending to be a writer has turned into an action-filled drama of cold war spies and espionage. No, not really. But it does explain why someone I don't know actually commented on my blog instead of it being just my sister calling me on the phone to comment on it.

According to the rules, I am now supposed to reveal five things about themselves that few people know and then tag five other bloggers to play. Sadly, though, both of these present a challenge to me as I have a big mouth and pretty much tell everyone everything anyway, and I don't know that I could come up with five lesser-known bloggers. However I can come up with a group blog created by at minimum five very creative individuals with whom I wrote some truly horrific comedy sketches for a piece of time. They very wisely lost touch with me a few months ago. Nonetheless, I am holding out hope that they will decide to respond to this invitation with creative elan and not flaming bags of poo instead. It is Christmas, after all, boys. What would the baby Jesus do? So please check out - http://www.boredfornow.blogspot.com/ - I promise it won't be a waste of your time.

Onto to the five things that no-one knows about me:

1) I am convinced I will die young, but I accept this and am in fact more ok with this concept than living beyond my capactiy for rational thought. I have always had this feeling and it explains a lot of bad behavior in my past. It also explains why being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis was not a surprise to me, but rather a moment of, "Aha! I knew it all along"-like enlightenment. I now take it to mean that I have to practice patience more seriously since wasting time yelling at crazy stupid people just takes away time I would have spent noticing better things instead. Very challenging mantra to keep to in airports, however.

2) When I was 11, I practiced having a mid-Atlantic accent and made non-dimensional Picasso like portraits of my classmates. Plus I wore L.L. Bean duck boots every day and started a Young Archeologists club with two other girls that involved one of us burying something and then the others going off to find it. I wondered why I was not invited to as many birthday parties as I had been in the past.

3) In my 20's I had a shamefully large number of terrible and unhealthy relationships with a wide variety of insecure and arrogant bastards. I thought they were the best that I could do and the most that I deserved. I didn't wake up until I was 30 and had the most abusive relationship of them all finally blow up on me. Not because I broke up with him; he dumped me. Via email. 90 minutes after he'd told me in person that he would meet me at the airport that evening for the flight to France for the wedding we were invited to. And it still took me a week to realize what an asshole he was.

4) I have a tattoo of a dog. I am seriously considering getting another tattoo of a dog but this time somewhere prominent and large. Check with me on my 40th birthday.

5) I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up, I just know that I want to make a difference and that I should probably go back to graduate school for something in the sciences.

Mind you, the Good News is that I am seriously freaking happy with my life, the most happy and excited and self-confident I've ever been. I am married to an amazing man who really "gets" me, we are going to have a baby girl in a few months, I live in an adorable house with an adorable dog and I am more at peace with this flawed piece of humanity called Me than I ever thought possible. So you know, 2:05am tends to produce contemplativeness in me instead of a list of celebrities that I have spoken to, but that may be why I'm awake at 2:06am to begin with. Tomorrow I'm going to wake up and write about the food in Cancun airport and what happened to Vinnie's Christmas tree this year. It will entertain and amuse. Cheers, Subservient Worker for giving me a frame for Christmas.

Baby Pancakes makes a face

This is Baby Girl Breslin at 18wks, 5days. As of tomorrow she will be 23wks "old". Life is good.

Final Quiche shot

Mmmmm!

Well dinner came out great - no runny eggs here! I suppose had I added a light salad it would have been healthier but that didn't occur to me until just now while looking at the plate. Next time I guess.

Spazzy Spag Bowl

On top is spag bowl; bottom is the mystery macaroni referenced in the cous-cous recipe

This is a really quick recipe, and it's spazzy because you'd have to be a total spaz to mess it up. Do not make it the English way and use Heinz Ketchup instead of canned tomatoes; that requires a lot of beer to be enjoyable.

Ingredients:
Small onion
2 cloves garlic
1 lb ground meat
14 oz can tomatoes
Cooked Pasta

Dice up onion and sautee in frying pan over med-hi heat. Add minced garlic and meat. Cook meat until still pink-ish but not red. Add tomatoes, bring to boil and reduce heat and simmer for 10mins or so until liquid is reduced. Serve over pasta, or if you're on a diet, cook half a spaghetti squash and use instead. Feel free to skip even the onion part of it and use onion powder or Adobe salt instead. Add herbs if you're feeling fancy, or red wine if you're feeling boozy and fancy. Just don't leave the plate where the dog can reach it while you're out of the room! Serves about 3 people, or 2 people plus left-overs.

Quickie Quiche-y

I hated eggs as a child. Hated, hated, hated them. Unfortunately they were a common enough staple of my mothers' cooking repetoire that I had to endure them repeatedly. There were many things I did not like about eggs, but the way my mother cooked them did not help. She seems to favor the "wave a match near the pan" methodology, which means they always tasted raw and wobbly to me. I always knew it was going to be a bad day if I woke up and there were poached eggs waiting for me for breakfast. In hindsight I can't understand why I wasn't allowed to have cereal instead of being forced to eat runny egg yolks that touch EVERYTHING whether you want them to or not. I think it may have been part of a general campaign to make me very, very excited to leave home the minute I turned 18. I believe there is a song from Bread and Jam for Francis about soft-boiled eggs that sums it up best:

"I do not like the way you slide,
I do not like your soft inside,
I do not like you lots of ways,
And I could do for many days
Without eggs."

Now that I am an adult (technically if not in actuality) I realize that eggs are an important source of protein and are better for you than bowls of Frosted Lucky Charms, even if they lack marshmallow surprises. When I lived in France during an exchange for business school, I was able to try a "real" quiche or two and was surprised to discover I actually liked them. Cooking the quiche all the way through seems to make a huge difference. After hauling out the Cuisine de l'etudiant booklet to scan in a photograph, I decided to try a few of the easy-peasy recipes after all. Last night was Spaghetti Bolognese, which was so good the dog stole half my dinner when I left it unguarded in the basement for a few minutes. Tonight is Quick Quiche. If it ends up reminding me of my childhood, this will be the last time I make it. Hopefully that won't be the case.

I looked at the French version, and found a similar recipe on Epicurious.com and arrived somewhere in the middle.
Link to Madame Quiche's basic recipe:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/15850

Here's the cheater's version:
Pre-made crust + filling + eggs + heat = Quiche

Buy pre-made pie crust, either the frozen one or the refrigerator section one (look near the pre-made rolls). Pre-cook the crust according to the directions on the package after poking some fork holes in it. Don't do what I did, which is to follow pre-baking instructions for a real pate brisee and then the crust got over-browned. Leave aside to cool. Also I used a 9.5" tart pan with a removable bottom, but you can use a pie plate or whatever, but try to make sure it's relatively shallow. If it's too tall and deep, you end up with raw middles, the bane of my childhood.

Ham bits being cooked plus shallots and herbs minus bone which, yes, is still in the dog...

Fillings are as varied as your leftovers are. Just make sure that the meat is pre-cooked and in small pieces. I am not a huge fan of broccoli in quiches since it is too big, but if you like it, go for it. Basic rules are dice meat, stir over med-high heat in a frying pan, add onions or shallots and herbs until cooked through. Try stirring in some frozen vegetables for added nutrition. I am craving ham like crazy lately (thank you baby!) so that's what I was doing with a ham steak. I added some diced shallot, chopped parsley and minced thyme since I had that in the fridge. Once cooked through, put filling on the bottom of the pre-baked crust. I added canned marinated artichoke hearts too since who doesn't love artichokes and ham?

Quiche prior to being covered with egg filling

Egg mixture should follow the basic recipe of 3eggs + 1/2cup milk + 1/3cup cream or creme fraiche + 1/2cup shredded Gruyere or Swiss cheese + salt & pepper. Beat with a fork to combine and pour over fillings. Try using Egg Beaters instead of real eggs, or fat-free half n' half instead of cream, or plain yogurt instead of cream. You could probably switch the cheeses out for something different but make sure it's a semi-hard cheese that melts well. Fontina? Raclette? Dunno. Just don't substitute Brie, because that would be a mess. You could probably also go with the pre-shredded variety in the bag near where you found the pie crusts and not suffer any major dilemmas. If you're using a larger pie plate, double the number of eggs and milke, etc.

Bake at 425 F for 30mins, less if you're using two smaller tart pans, more if you're using a larger pan. Quiche is done when it is nice and brown and golden on top, and it doesn't wobble when moved. Stick a knife in it to see if the center is cooked all the way through. Since I pretty much burnt the crust, I used pie shields while baking the quiche to keep them from burning for real, but feel free to skip this and/or use tin foil instead.

Le Quiche au Jambon est pret!

Parenting Pop-quiz Failure

I just let the dog eat an entire ham bone. I mean he literally swallowed the whole bone. It was a little round circle, as found in a ham steak, bigger than a life-saver but smaller than a bagel. Maybe the size of a silver dollar? Somehow, even though the I-told-you-so part of me knew he was going to swallow the whole thing, my emotional brain convinced the strict part of me that he would just gnaw at it instead and leave the undigestible bone part on the floor. Ha. It was gone in 3 seconds.

I fear for my future child. What kind of parent am I going to be? I have just failed yet another mini-pop-quiz on how to be a good parent.

What am I doing up at 6:00am slicing up a ham steak anyway? Good question. I am planning on making a quiche for dinner and since I couldn't sleep thought I'd get started on it ahead of time. I'll post more about the quiche tomorrow.

Cuisine de l'étudiant

Cous-cous de l'étudiant

This blog entry is to demonstrate to my vast audience of two people that I do not in fact live on cookies, cake and brownies. But let's face it, those are far more fun to photograph and eat so that's usually what I remember to put into the blog. In the interest of appearing more healthy than I normally am, I include this delightful recipe for Cous-Cous de l'étudiant, which is not, in fact, something that I came up with as a college student, but it is more inspired by my little cookbook entitled Cuisine de l'étudiant which I picked up in B.H.V. department store sometime in the 90's in Paris. The photographs, however, were clearly taken at some point in the early 80's and are extremely hilarious. The food was photographed with papers in the foreground, or maybe a binder or two - no computers/ordinateurs mind you - just to remind you that this is food for the student, and not the pathetic bachelor. Often the same background was used for two different dishes with one minor change. Maybe this was meant as a memory game to keep the student mind sharp? I just hope the food was not left lying around on a set somewhere, forlorn and fuzzy with mold for a decade. I think the book was part of a "How-to" Series: How-to Fly Fish, How-to Taxidermy, How-to Pole Dance.

The cover photo features a plate of macaroni mixed with brown bits and little green bits, and is comfortingly surrounded by pencil sharpeners and magic markers in elementary school colors. Something tells you that it's all going to be ok, as they haven't set the bar exactly high. Even my limited French vocabulary should be able to get me through macaroni hoops with a side dish of markers. I bought it for a grand sum of 32,30 francs, about $6 at the time. Number of times I've used it? Zero. Being able to read a recipe for making tuna salad in French and feel vaguely international? Priceless.


(actual photo from the recipe book)
In college I liked to relax before a big exam with two meals and a glass of wine. I would often sit down in front of a closed window shade with a photo of my special friend, Monique. We hadn't actually met yet, but I could tell from the picture she included in the frame that I bought from the campus bookstore that she thought I was pretty special too. We had that kind of bond. It was unspoken. You wouldn't understand, really.

To get to the actual recipe portion of this rambling commentary, cous-cous is crazy easy to make. First you must accept that it is a PASTA and not a grain. There is no such thing as a cous-cous bush, and if you dare argue with me I will beat you senseless with a meat tenderizer, occasionally pausing to read from the Rumsfield Handbook for the Righteous to explain that it is not actually torture if you disagree with my religious position on cous-cousology.

Measure out 1 cup of cous-cous into a nice serving bowl. Boil 1 cup of water or stock, then add to the cous-cous and stir. Cover with saran wrap or a plate and wait 5mins. You now have cooked cous-cous. Start by adding the flavourings first, then the chunky stuff. For this recipe I added sliced almonds, dried cranberries, chopped green onion, orange peel zest, orange sections, grated ginger and a splash of sesame oil. Stir, stir, stir and taste to check the seasonings and adjust where needed. Then I added some pre-cooked turkey breast from Whole Foods and some steamed snap peas, again from Whole Foods, not that it wouldn't be easy to do those from the freezer but I happened to be in Whole Paycheck today and it was easier. You now have dinner. The beauty part of this is that you can either eat it hot or cold, whatever you prefer.

Did I mention that I also made sweet potato soup out of left-over roasted sweet potatoes that I didn't use for the pies I made on Thanksgiving? I did. Dump left-over mashed yams in a soup pot or alternatively crack open a can of pumpkin pie filling which is mostly made out of butternut squash, btw, add chicken broth and heat over med flame. Purée if needed with a stick-blender. Season to taste. This time I went with mild curry powder, cumin, paprika, dash of cayenne pepper and sea salt. Feel free to go the onion powder/thyme/sage route instead or even I suppose cinnamon, brown sugar and marshmellows but that might be more of a dessert soup, something that should be limited to the under 9 set and achieved through vigorous stirring of ice cream and toppings really.

The whole thing took literally 15mins to make tops and it was pretty tasty, pretty looking and pretty healthy. I must say when I get it in gear I do a nice job of Monday night dinners. Maybe tomorrow night I'll whip up a Clafoutis Salé which sounds complex but in actuality is just a baked omelet. Maybe I'll just keep that part to myself and beg for compliments from John anyway.


This is Un bon cous-cous. What makes it masculin instead of feminine? Why the nuts of course. D'oh!