Potatoes and Eggs

I like holidays and food, so really any time I get to make food for a holiday it's pretty exciting. As ever I totally failed at making anything Welch for St. Davids day (I've seriously been trying to do that for like....years.) so felt guilty and went gangbusters for St. Patrick.

There was colcannon, as you can see. I thought for sure I'd posted a recipe for that but I can't seem to find it so just in case you've never eaten it please do the following:

Make mashed potatoes.

While the potatoes are cooking wash half a bunch of kale and put it in a smaller pot of boiling water.

When they're tender drain as best you can and coarsely chop. Add to the mashed potatoes with anything else you fancy such as sauteed onion, cheese, more butter...it's very sturdy and comforting food. Miss Dick taught me how to make it one rainy afternoon while we watched Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

And no St. Patrick celebration is complete without Margaret Bell's Soda Bread and reubens.

I even found marbled rye this year!! To top it off Miss H and I made up a devious concoction in a blender of Baileys, B&J Chocolate Fudge Brownie, and Haaged Daz French Vanilla ice cream. It's decadent and delicious, but you should make it anyways. It is a celebration after all...

And after you've finished off your last reuben it's time for Easter! Which means eggs and ham.

MINI HAM!! Finally a legit ham that I can buy to feed just me!! It's entirely possible that I clapped my hands and squeaked a bit when I spotted it in the meat isle of my grocery store. Entirely possible.

I stuck it in bistro salad with poached eggs...

...in pasta alla carbonara. It was so nice to eat ham for Easter! Maybe I'll do a fidget pie next year as the last time I made it I had to use lunch meat ham instead of real ham ham which was rather disappointing. Tragic, really. I don't think I even put a crust on top. So it really wasn't fidget pie at all just roasted veggies with bits of meat. Clearly I need to fix that.

Some day I'll get around to making hot cross buns just like Miss Linda, but I'm not rushing it.  One food tradition at a time!

Because really the most important one is the chocolate bunny.

Duh.

Count Your Blessings

Well folks, I made it through the woods.

I'm still a little dazed, blinking bemusedly at my surroundings and wondering how the heck I did it, but it's done! I now officially have only two jobs and will be getting back that thing referred to as  "a weekend". I managed the situation gracefully up to mid March where it went to pieces and I arrived in April looking rather worse for wear. But it didn't kill me, just made me more resilient. Or something.

Anyways, I would like to share the only weekend I didn't work in March! Also known as 'Lizbeth and Jack Save My Sanity with Fun Adventures in Chicago'.

Because if good friends, baby coos, and jellyfish don't make you feel good you're a goner.

I hadn't been to the Shedd Aquarium since I was here on a family vacation before I went to college, Lizbeth and I figured it would be a good activity for everyone including the four month old who likes to stare at lights.

This was his face pretty much the whole time. Except when he was sleeping. Or the few times he needed to express his opinion about things.

*point*  Fiiiiiiishieeeeeees!!!

The 'Jellies' were everyone's favorite.

And I got be a good Fairy Godmother and spoil him with a toy for him to hold onto and drool on. (!!!!!!!)

The rest of the visit was quiet and comfortable. And we ate this dinner while watching this delightful film and later munching on florentine cookies my sweetie of a Mom sent in a care package. I miss her baking!! We kept saying "oh, just one more..." and ate half the tin. WHAT.

I was sad to see them drive off, but I was happier that they had been here! Definitely a blessing I've been counting.

Now I have to go do my taxes (aha.) and make these muffins. I'll tell you all about it next time!

Quiet Breathing

As whirlwind as things are right now I keep finding moments where things are still and lovely.

Or sometimes just silly.

I've tried hard to eat as well as I can, good healthy breakfasts to start my days.

If I need a sweet treat to go with something like Molly's Banana Bread with chocolate and ginger instead of sugary sugarness that will leave me in a quivering mass on the floor. Yay.

Quiet, slow mornings are really helping me with all the busy. Though a little less quiet this week...yeah. I can't really think about what this means right now. I'm just letting my inner 5 yr old boy enjoy the trucks and booms and jackhammers.

There's been a lot of vegetables. Lurking under grains,

 grated into long slurping lengths,

 and crunchy goodness shared with friends.

I've got a weekend of eating, talking, and being with my Lizbeth and Wee Jack which you'll no doubt be hearing about. Until then its quiet breathing through the snow and letting it just happen as it happens.

Pin It Down

In my favorite Tift Merritt song she says "when you try to pin it down, that moment slips away" which is pretty much how I feel about my time at the moment. I'm currently working 7 days a week, and usually when I get a moment where I'm not trying to feed myself, clean something, or dress myself I tend to stare off into space...or at the T.V.

Which is totally lame. So lame! I have like two blog posts up in my head and it's been weeks and I've not managed to freakin' get them written! Uber lame yo! So trust me, it's bothering me as much as it's bothering you. So here's a bone to help me sleep at night and to soothe the masses before they storm the gates:

Downton and What I Made for my Ladies
Episode One, So-Good-I-Can't-Believe-It's-Legal Brownies
Episode Two, Madeira Cake
Episode Five, Ginger Molasses Cookies
Episode Seven, Spinach and Artichoke Linguine
Finale, copped out and got appetizers from the Middle Eastern Bakery in Andersonville. Their hummus is so smooth it's almost fluffy and makes me want to cry.

And speaking of the Finale....seriously??!!

THAT is how you end Series III of Downton? Seriously??!?!

The love/hate relationship I have with Downton Abbey is ridiculous. But that ending crossed the line from "large group of people who are living through WWI/get-sick-you're-screwed so ratio wise this many people have to die, whatever." to "this family is cursed and you're all f*cked.".

Fortunately I have a year to forget my outrage and get sucked back into the emotional masochism that is this mini series. 

Curses.

Notes to Myself

-Always try to time your colds to peak on the weekend so you have an excuse to lie in bed and watch the snow.

-Next time get more than three bulbs. Only one out of three and no blooms yet!! WTF paper-whites. WTF.

-Two old quilt squares + a battered angora hat for the inside= a quick, resourceful, and well insulated tea cozy.

You crafty fiend.

-Eat more citrus. Scurvy is no longer fashionable. Plus you have a recipe for baked grapefruit burning a hole in your recipe folder so get off your ass.

-Don't put a wooden spoon anywhere near your blender again. There are other ways to get more fiber in your diet and you're lucky you didn't get a splinter. Damn tasty hummus though!

-Re-visit that Eastern European deli around the corner, that smoked sausage was off the chain. But maybe learn some Czech so you can read the labels and point less. And start reading Le Carre again, gnawing on some rostiljska kobasica while thumbing through Little Drummer Girl will be deliciously dorky.

-Buy another can of black beans. Maybe check out that little Mexican grocery store down the block, get duplicates of your keys made while you're at it.

-Next time remember that these cookies need barely ten minutes to cook in your furnace of an oven. Get more milk for dunking the rock hard first batch...

-Remember not to turn the oven on when you're letting no-knead bread dough rise inside. There are very few things as sad looking as a ball of half-risen half-baked bread dough. Maybe a wet fluffy cat. Or a lone sock on the floor of the laundry room.

"I feel nice, like sugar and spice."-James Brown

Sugar and spice are awful nice aren't they? Makes me think of a gingerbread cookie. Mmmmm...

But I was actually thinking about this song because it's what popped into my head when my yoga instructor asked us to set an intention for class. Probably not exactly what she had in mind...but whatever, I sang it quietly in my head anyways. It always makes me happy. Like dancing about and singing along happy which as I'm not in a musical I don't do that often. But I love to dance in my kitchen, barefoot, with the music turned up. It may mean more splatters on the floor, or possibly even walls, but it's worth it.  I made a batch of brownies last week and wondered if they tasted better because I was having such fun making them...

I always find myself in the kitchen if I'm feeling a little blue. If it's just mini blues I'll be reaching into the freezer for a pint of Ben & Jerry's or making a brownie in a mug to eat with a chick flick and a box of tissues. But if it's the linger-y kind that's hard to shake I'll be singing along to Motown songs or Patsy Cline.

I'm not particularly blue at the moment or anything, never fear. I've just been reflecting on how the act of cooking is such an important part of my life. I fully enjoy and appreciate the product, but it's something in the concentration and movement and process itself that really does it for me.

Weekend breakfasts especially have a sort of soothing repetitive quality. I don't vary my breakfasts too often so its a known routine of kettle on, pot to boil, toast toasting, butter softening, and in a few minutes you have tea and soft boiled eggs on toast to welcome you to a new day.

Or my current favorite breakfast of a Dutch baby pancake with lemon juice and sugar that I've repeated so often I don't have to think too hard to make it anymore.  It looks like the surface of the moon in the Wallace and Gromit movies and deflates just like a souffle when you take it out of the oven, which I find ridiculously amusing. It also gets stuck to the bottom of my non-skillet pan which is annoying but as I'm the only one eating it I don't give a hoot.

Though maybe I'll give the glass pie pan a whirl next time I make them...after all it's a damn shame to have some stuck to the bottom when I could have eaten it. Since this recipe makes two and I am one I get to use the rest of the batter the next morning...or for dinner if I can't make it 24 hrs.

Dangit I'm totally craving it now.

But pancakes three days in a row is not the best idea, vinyasas are a much better sort of repetition sometimes. Especially when you're singing along to James Brown.

And A Happy New Year

What?
You don't ring in the New Year by beating pots and pans with spoons?? Clearly you aren't half Keating. But I'm glad we're friends so I can urge you to try it for 2014. I converted three people that night. And they weren't that drunk.

Miss H was fierce and I was fancy because I had on a sparkly headband. Instant fancy!
With tons of food and fun and games it was an excellent start to the New Year and I have to say I'm all a fizz to see what happens this year! It's so exciting!

I don't go in for making lists of resolutions but I have thoughts about how I'd like this year to be, not really goals but how I want to feel and be as a person. I really shook my life up last year, I was brave and walked away from a place that was bad for me into the unknown. I woke up and fought, just like Woody told me to. And with a V for Victory I end 2012, the Year of Woody, lovin' everybody.

I like going home for Christmas and getting back in touch with that older part of my life before coming back to the city to revel in the present for the New Year. It really puts things in perspective, showing you their values.

And I do love the old part...

Quiet and familiar.

Just as I left it, almost. And yet so different.

It was a more subdued Christmas somehow, feeling the need to pull in a little, even the Misses Lizbeth and Amy said they felt that way this year. Not in a bad way, just different from some other years. All the same it was wonderful, all the new things and the old ones too.

And of course we ate well. We had steaks for Christmas Eve (as ever, nothing says "I Love You" to a Sandin like red meat, thanks Grandaddy!) and our menu for Christmas Day: Breakfast Burritos, Roast Chicken and Vegetables with an Asian Pear Salad for dinner, and Gingerbread with Lemon Sauce for dessert.

Smashing.

This is the breakfast of champions.

I'm not sure I would have managed all that wrapping ripping without such hearty fortification! I was still slightly full when dinner rolled around which is quite shocking as well as appalling as it was a really tasty dinner and I wanted to eat lots of it.

It was made extra exciting by the meat thermometer exploding in the oven while the chicken was roasting. Eep! But no one choked on a piece of glass, thankfully, we just chewed very carefully. I just couldn't manage seconds. But never fear, I rallied for this:

I love this dessert and no Christmas should be without it. The cake itself is a very nice gingerbread but the true glory is the lemon butter sauce we drench it it. It's heaven and you actually find yourself cutting a second piece of cake to use up the sauce left on your plate from the first slice. It's that kind of a sauce people.

Miss Linda's Gingerbread with Lemon Sauce

1 c molasses
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 c sugar
1/2 melted butter
2 c flour
1 c boiling water
2 eggs, separated and the yolks and whites beaten

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix the molasses, baking soda and spices together.
Add sugar, butter, flour and hot water beating together well.
Add yolks and fold in the whites.
Pour into greased 8 c ring mold, the batter looks thin it's okay!
Bake for 35-40 minutes.

and don't you dare skimp out on the sauce or I'll smack you.

Sauce:
1 c sugar
1 tsp cornstarch
1/4 c water
1 egg, beaten
1 lemon, juiced
2 tsp lemon zest
1/2 c butter

Mix the sugar and cornstarch together in a small saucepan over medium heat. Gradually stir in the water, egg, lemon juice and zest, and butter. Keep stirring until mixture thickens and comes to a boil. Keep at a boil for 1 minute then remove from heat and pour into a small jug to serve. Makes 1 1/2 c.

But I have to say, my favorite part of Christmas was falling asleep to the quiet hiss of snowflakes falling on the skylights and waking up to a wintry wonderland.

It was falling fast enough my plans for the day were cancelled and I snuggled up with Miss Linda on the couch to watch movies and knit.

Dr. Karl kept peering out windows shaking his head and tut-tutting at the rate the snow was falling which made us giggle.

I had him make me "children's coffee" which is just really milky sweet coffee which I drank out of a bowl just like him.

And we managed to make it all the way through the Lord of the Rings, again.

By nightfall the snow had slowed and Miss Noh and I went for a walk in the wintry wonderland of our hometown.

We still have a pathetic amount of snow up here in Chicago. I'm quite glum about it and keep glaring any time Miss Linda tells me of how they've had even MORE snow since I've left. Jerks.

Whatever.

I'm still ridiculously cheerful about the start of a brand new year and will just have to keep my fingers crossed for a Snowmageddon 2013. Bring on the thunder-snow!!