"You must retrench!"

"Retrench? Retrench! How may I retrench?! A baronet must be seen to live like a baronet!!"

One of my favorite rainy weekend things to do is drink tea and watch Persuasion. I've been thinking about that particular film a lot recently as starting now I am Retrenching. Not in Bath like Sir Walter Elliot, but (soon) in a new apartment! A wee place of my own! So perhaps it's more like the Dashwood Ladies, a simpler and less extravagant life in a cottage by the sea...except I'll be in a studio apartment in Ravenswood, Chicago.

Unfortunately a studio has a much higher rent than what I'm paying now, so some budget Retrenching is called for. I hardly spend like a madwoman as is, but taking a good look at my expenses is called for. I've done more math in the past few days than I'd like to think about.But I also feel like I've got a better grasp on my money use, which really is my biggest problem.

Money comes in, money goes out and I'm only vaguely aware of it. It's a numbers thing. My brain doesn't care for them. Growing up I'd "launder my money" by leaving bills or even checks in my pockets which Mom would find when she washed my jeans. As a grown up I may check my bank accounts daily and have even set up an online budgeting tool but it does little good. The numbers on my screen still remain vague symbols nothing more.

And so I'm going old school folks. I'm going to write everything down. I'll be like Mr. Bennet in his study having a night cap while tallying up the ledger book. I've got a calendar laid out with when my paychecks come in and how much they'll be, when rent/utilities/fixed expenses etc go out, and I will record grocery and other expenses as they happen. Miss Cait, who I've taken to calling my Financial Advisor, sent me an article from this website, Wise Bread (bread!!) which has lots of excellent advice on wise money use. Miss Cait and Lisa have adopted a Cash Only budget for dining out/entertainment and I think it sounds like a good idea. After all, once cash is gone it's gone! And I've stopped putting mine though the wash ;-)

Not surprisingly, I spend a good part of my money on food. I KNOW RIGHT!

I've already begun to be creative on my grocery trips. By shopping mainly at my local Mexican grocery not only am I saving money but eating more fruit and veg too. Score! Whatever I can't get there I'll buy at the Jewel, trying to get things on sale or with coupons. Having a Walgreens around the corner is a convenient and dangerous thing, so I've been sticking to one trip a week.

As to what I'm buying, that couscous has become a favorite as half a box makes up almost three meals. Madness! I love tuna on buttered toast (a less freaky take on the classic sardines on toast) which is great because tuna is damn cheap. Cornmeal is also damn cheap. I'm scheming to whip up some dried cranberry corn muffins this week. Oh! and did you know that fiori pasta cooks up to be like twice it's original size? I had Miss Ashley over for dinner a few weeks ago and seriously over estimated how much I would need to feed two! Loooads of leftovers. Do you have any secret weapons in your Makin' It Last Arsenal? Any stone soup style recipes?

Speaking of stone soup, a few weeks ago I was reading the blog of a fashion designer who likes ajeweler who made a tasty looking potato and rosemary pizza which came from a blog calledStonesoup. And at Stonesoup I stayed for several hours pouring over her loads of amazing recipes and guides for a healthier, money saving, less wasteful, and more Aussie life style. Some top picks:

7 Unusual Tips for Reducing your Food Costs (My friends and I run into the produce waste a lot due to unreliable schedules, but see! Frozen Veg is ok! The Aussie lady says so!)

18 Tips for Minimising Your Food Costs

7 Golden Rules for Freezing Food (I can't wait for summer and the "berry glut"!!)

10 Tips for Optimal Vegetable Storage

Lots of ideas and schemes! And honestly it's kind of a fun challenge. I used to do technical theater after all, which really boils down to making something awesome out of a whole lot of nothing. My family calls it Sandin Ingenuity. It must be a Swedish thing, coming from a culture centered around this untranslatable idea of 'Lagom'. Which thanks to my recent trip to the Swedish American Museum's exhibit on the Smorgasbord as well as watching the No Reservation's Sweden episode I've become aware of. An idea that what you have is just right. "Making do" without the negative connotations. Finding joy in the simple, sometimes even free things. Like tuna on buttered toast. Public Parks. And good friends.

Fortunately, I'm not a baronet with social expectations to uphold. Retrenching is not going to force me to rent out my ancestral home and move to Bath or anything like that. It's just getting me into a new apartment, which I just got approved for!

"There's no way I'm going to Jersey without my HAIR GEL!"

Consider this a Public Service Announcement.

Click on this link and watch the five episodes of The Jersey Shore Gone Wilde.

Thank me later.

"I can't talk to you right now. I'm having a religious experience"

That was Moshka's highly appropriate response to eating a slice of the challah bread I made (with a LOT of Miss Cait's help) for Easter. My boss asked me on Thursday if I was doing anything to celebrate, "uuuh, bake challah and eat carrots?". It's how I roll. And so it was, a lovely Saturday was spent at Miss Cait and Lisa's knitting and making Jewish bread when none of us are Jewish. Below you see our darling twin loaves baking to perfection!

And me being a creeper....

We used the recipe from the Enchanted Broccoli Forest and did you know that there is an illustrated bread making guide in that book? It's hilarious. I "guided" my dough through kneading instead of "intimidating" it. Good thing I didn't have to bust out my water-boarding device huh! Caitlin shared her preferred kneading technique, which is sort of a left hand knead, right hand knead, fold over with right hand sort of thing. We did that until it had an "ear-lobe-like texture", which was about twenty minutes. And we both got a kick out of the fact that our "floured surface" was a flower shaped cutting board! (Tehehheee)

Miss Lisa asked why we were glazing it with egg and the best response we could come up with was "to make it pretty". The poppy and sesame seeds also make it pretty. As does the braid.

Mmmmm. Pretty.

Because Miss Cait told me to we did not uses as much flour as the recipe calls for, and added most of it during the kneading process which seems to have worked wonderfully. We also decided to split the dough in half so we each had a complete braided loaf and they really are practically full sized! So how big would the single loaf had been??? I shudder to think.

On Easter Sunday I had a picnic on Montrose Harbor with my friend Kate.

As you can see it wasn't a terribly sunny day but at least it wasn't raining and the temperature made it past 50 degrees. See, here's Kate pretending like she wasn't freezing slowly to death.

I brought some of my fresh bread since I forgot Kate can't eat gluten. Aha. We had deviled eggs, ham sandwiches (err, rolled up bits of ham if you're Kate), and Paul Newman's "oreos".

The harbor is really quite lovely and I can't wait for it to be summer. It's one of the great perks about Chicago, all that lakefront to enjoy! And even though I'm miles away from what I consider "the Lincoln Park area", Montrose Beach and Harbor are technically still a part of Lincoln Park! It's a half hour bus ride long! It just keeps going! Chicago: Land of Long Ass Parks.

And funky bird houses in said parks.

For dinner I made a sort of Fidget Pie (one of my favorite dishes, often requested for my Birthday.) Just chopped up some potatoes, onion and apples and baked in the oven. I'm too lazy to make pie crust it seems. With some sliced ham on the side and lovely pickles it was a very hearty, kind of English country meal. Which is only right as PBS has been Mystery Marathoning ALL WEEKEND!!

An excellent end to the week and a happy Easter and Spring to you all!

P.S. I keep working on a post on frugality and food but this week has been busy and I have a lot of thoughts! But it will be posted some day soon!!

Food Porn.

Yup.

Food Porn.

I'm watching it.

Anthony Bourdain's Season Six, Episode Six. "Food Porn".

Netflix it. You know you want to ;-)

But seriously, I was at home minding my own business (baking cookies) when Moshka texted/ordered me to hack into her Netflix and watch "Food Porn". I obeyed.

The next hour was filled with messaging back and fort things like "Oh my god your head is going to explode. He's eating pork" and "Chocolate. F*ck." It was kind of amazing. The episode has the whole range from the stereotypical (chocolate) to one of my personal little indulgences, Pho. Plus some kinky stuff thrown in too (pickled chicken feet anyone??). It's hott.

Did I mention that it was 11 o'clock at night? And that I was baking? Yeah, I'm that girl who whips up a cookie dough at 8 pm on a Saturday that has to chill for two hours before you can bake it. Whatever. I had fresh walnut and spice sables to eat with my porn. And it was awesome.

My cookie craving started this morning when I went to the Swedish American Museum to check out their "Smorgasboard" exhibit. Pepparkakor, a traditional Swedish spice cookie like gingersnaps, have actually featured in my food vocabulary from a very young age. Blame Kirsten the American girl and Pippi Longstocking for that. And while they sell some really good ones at my local Walgreens (because guess who founded that chain, a SWEDE) I've been toying with the idea of making some. This recipe from What Kate Ate didn't help. And then I found this recipe on Orangette and in a fit of mad genius decided to swap out the cocoa nibs for ground walnuts and add some spices to it. At 8 pm.

Three hours later, with slightly burnt bottoms, I nibbled on some delightful sables which I washed down with a glass of milk (They are XXXhardcoreXXX butter cookies people.).

I think the dough, which is a bit dry, could have gone with a little bit longer in the fridge as it was a bit crumbly when I was slicing the dough log. But I also think that the added spice and nuts dried out the already sandy sable dough so if you do the recipe in original form 2 hrs may be just fine! I could have stuck it back in the fridge but was impatient as I plan to give/force some off on Cait tomorrow at brunch and I'd rather stay up late than wake up earlier than ten on a Sunday! Especially since its 12:30 am...

I had planned to be a total hermit this weekend and not make plans (other than sit on my ass, read, and cook) but they're showing our apartment from eleven to noon and hey, if I have to eat my breakfast not at home it might as well be with a friend right?!

I'll bake up the rest tomorrow (keeping a closer eye on their bottoms!!).

I like sables, do you? Sand-y cookies for a Sandin! Ahaha.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words...so here's seven.

Miss A. Dick was here last week for our Birthdays. She drank a whole twelve pack of Dr. Pepper.

Sunday night we made blueberry pancakes in boxer shorts and tank tops. It was 8o degrees.

She helped.

Flip it sister.

We used a basic pancake recipe but added the zest of one lemon to the batter and sprinkled blueberries onto the frying cakes.

Delicious.

We did make a bit of a mess though...so worth it!

(Oh and in photo #3 and #4 you can see the GIANT bowl Miss Moshka got me for my Birthday! It's BIGGER than my HEAD. I'll brag about the rest of my amazing loot in my next post!)

'C' is for couscous and cookies

Well that was good.

Have you guys had Israeli/Maftoul couscous? Its not the tiny wee bits that fall of your fork they're larger, almost tapioca sized grains, and I've managed to find it in most grocery stores in their ethnic section. Someone gave me half a box of it one summer back in Boulder and I've been hooked on it since.

Preparation is a little more complex than the couscous that comes with a spice packet, but you can really do whatever you want to it. Back in college I used to dump a chicken flavored Ramen packet into the broth (No 20 yr old has bullion cubes.) then added cumin, sauteed onion, and shrimp. Giada De Laurentiis has a really nice summery dish that has cranberries, mint leaves and slivered almonds. On the back of the couscous box they say you can just add some tomato paste, onion, chickpeas, cumin and call it a day.

I picked up a box of "Ziyad Brand Maftoul", two zucchini and an eggplant at my local produce place on Friday. While cleaning the apartment yesterday I had the chopped zucchini, eggplant and half an onion roasting in the oven with a bit of cumin added to the olive oil/S&P mix.

To make the couscous you first heat 2 c broth (or water with a bullion cube) to boiling in a small saucepan. Then saute 1 c of the couscous in some olive oil to brown it a little in a medium saucepan. Then add the broth, some cumin, S&P to the couscous and simmer for 10 to 12 minutes or until the couscous is tender (towards the end keep a close eye on it as they can stick to the bottom of your pan if it gets a little dry). Then remove from heat, put a lid on it, and let it sit for a few minutes. If all the water had already been absorbed (see sticking note) I might add a little bit more at this point.

Now you can add whatever veggies you've got! Yesterday I added some tomato sauce, a bit of a red pepper spread I had picked up, and the roasted veggies. I even went crazy and sprinkled some shredded cheese on top. Then I ate it. Mmmmm.

Today is a rather grey day, but grey or rainy Sundays seem appropriate somehow. It's the weekend you don't have to go outside if you don't want to! I don't have to leave the house until 3:45 pm so am sitting on my couch watching Stranger than Fiction. I'm baking today you see, and that movie just seems appropriate.

I do hope you've all seen it. It's my favorite Chicago movie (even though they never say that's where it is). But most of all it's because of the final lines:

As Harold took a bite of Bavarian sugar cookie, he finally felt as if everything was going to be ok. Sometimes, when we lose ourselves in fear and despair, in routine and constancy, in hopelessness and tragedy, we can thank God for Bavarian sugar cookies. And, fortunately, when there aren't any cookies, we can still find reassurance in a familiar hand on our skin, or a kind and loving gesture, or subtle encouragement, or a loving embrace, or an offer of comfort, not to mention hospital gurneys and nose plugs, an uneaten Danish, soft-spoken secrets, and Fender Stratocasters, and maybe the occasional piece of fiction. And we must remember that all these things, the nuances, the anomalies, the subtleties, which we assume only accessorize our days, are effective for a much larger and nobler cause. They are here to save our lives. I know the idea seems strange, but I also know that it just so happens to be true. And, so it was, a wristwatch saved Harold Crick.

Isn't that just lovely? Life, it's all about the little things. And cookies.

...speaking of cookies...

Oh yes.

I definitely baked today.

I bought a bag of whole wheat flour for the bread I made last weekend and remembered there had been an Orangette recipe for chocolate chip cookies that used whole wheat flour. And today I finally got around to it.

Harold Crick, IRS agent and unlikely hero, kept me company.

It's a pretty straight forward cookie recipe, but oh my are they good. As Mo said after eating one, it has a really great nuttiness to it. And while it still has the buttery sugary goodness that I love from the Nestle recipe, the whole wheat heartiness is fantastic. Next time I may just do the Nestle recipe but sub in whole wheat flour instead of all-purpose...

Also, as the heartiness is not just in flavor but flour texture too I can't honestly recommend making them without a mixer like I did...

Yup, lost a bit of skin to the wooden spoon. Does this make me a hardcore baker or just an idiot?

Oh well.

Injuries aside I am please to report that April has been very satisfactory so far. I got my Illinois drivers license on Friday! I was a bit bummed to say goodbye to that Ohio license, it had such a good story attached to it, as well as that connection to my old state I'd be reminded of any time I bought a drink. But the times they are a changin' and I feel like I'm an official Chicagoan now. Plus the photo isn't half bad!

So here's to April and her showers! Go forth, bake some cookies, eat some couscous and remember what Anna Pascal, the rebellious baker and unlikely love interest of Harold Crick, put on the front of her bakery:

"We are here to fight, to think, to love, to rebel, to bake."

"Guess what!! I made bread and it doesn't suck!!"

I left that on Miss Dick's answering machine Sunday afternoon. It's Ballymaloe Brown Yeast Bread. It rose. I didn't burn my kitchen down. It made a hollow sound when I rapped it with my knuckles like the recipe told me to do. And it doesn't taste half bad.

The recipe came from the book I'm reading, Going with the Grain by Susan Seligson. It comes from her chapter on the Ballymaloe House in Shanagarry Ireland where a man named Tim and his wife Darina are making really awesome traditional breads. (Did you know that to get Irish Soda Bread to rise you have to cut an 'x' in the top and they call it "letting the fairies out"?!)

But it's his mother, Myrtle, who is famous for her brown wheat bread. Seligson describes it as "at once dense and airy...it's got the kind of wholesome wheaty aroma that makes you want to rub your nose in it like a dog.". Well I guess you could call this loaf dense and airy. And I do keep smelling it...I think it could be a little sweeter though. Just a bit. More molasses? Honey? Or maybe its just a bread that requires you to serve it with butter or jam. How terrible.

I ate mine with some apple butter from good old Legend Hills Orchard from last fall. (And English Breakfast Tea....oops! Whatever, they're supposed to be friends now right?) Later that night I tried it with the dregs of my Bonne Maman Raspberry Preserve, and that is hands down a delicious pairing! I usually find raspberry jam to be too sweet, but this bread is so hearty its not a problem. Will have to buy some more jam...

I put half the loaf aside for a dinner later in the week (riding the bus with a loaf of bread in your purse is pretty special) and ate a slice for tea every night of the week. Tastycakes.

My Auntie M has recommended I get this book, Savory Baking from the Mediterranean, and who knows, maybe I'll keep breading. I mean this time there wasn't a yeast-icide and I only almost melted a plastic bowl and set a towel alight. Improvement?? Back in college Dr K apparently tried his hand at baking which produced "a pair of rye loaves that hybridized turd and brick" and "several pies that both looked and tasted like wet cardboard". Good job dad. Mine at least are edible, my kitchen may just end up being collateral damage some day. Is this baking evolution at work?? I wonder...

Ballymole Brown Yeast Bread from Going with the Grain

Ingredients:

4 1/2 c whole wheat flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp molasses

2 c warm water (I ended up using 2 1/2 c since it was too dry when I mixed it all together)

1 tbs active dry yeast

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Mix flour with salt and warm it slightly in an oven just beginning to heat (don't be a dumbass and use a plastic bowl like me).

In a small bowl mix the molasses with some of the water and mix in the yeast. Put the bowl in a warm place (e.g., stove top). Let yeast grow for about five minutes or until the mixture is creamy and slightly frothy on top.

Grease a loaf tin and put it in the oven to warm, also warm a clean towel (as the oven is so hot this does NOT take long!!! Be careful!)

Stir yeast mixture well and pour it, with most of the remaining water, into the flour to make a wettish dough. The mixture should be too wet to knead (here's where I had to add 1/2 c more water). Put mixture into the greased, warmed tin. Put the tin in a warm place and cover it with the tea towel.

Let the loaf rise for about 40 minutes or so, until it rises to twice its original size (ok it took me like an hour for it to double in size, my yeast might suck so just add time as necessary).

Remove the tea towel and bake the loaf for 45 to 50 minutes, or until it appears nicely browned and sounds hollow when tapped. At Ballymaloe the loaves are removed from their tins about ten minutes before the end of cooking and immediately placed back in the oven to crisp all around. If you prefer a softer crust leave bread to finish baking in the pan.

Serve with butter, jam or honey and of course tea....and maybe an Irish movie.