Polenta.....Pudding?

I use to be an okay cook but my skills have deteriorated over the years. First I was married to a man who thought that Chef Salad was the height of cuisine and now I live with a man who cooks far better than I have ever dreamed of. I still enjoy cooking... I am just no damned good at it. So while my boyfriend is away for a few weeks to explore our vast country I have taken to blaspheming his kitchen.

I am celiac, thus cannot eat wheat/gluten. Pasta is right out. I have been wanting to try Polenta Lasagna for a while as a way to get my cheesy goodness spot satisfied. I had all the ingredients I thought appropriate but was too cavalier to look up a recipe. Really how hard could it be? Polenta, sauce, fresh mozzarella, pesto-right? I layered, baked and awaited my righteous reward.

I suppose there are cookbooks for a reason, like say, to tell you that a bunch of moist ingredients will blend into a monolithic pan of ingredient. It didn't taste too bad but there is something about the word "lasagna" that evokes distinct layers of different textured items. This had turned into a loaf of very cheesy, slightly tomatoey polenta. In and of itself- not terrible.

I had it for dinner two nights in a row and then had it for lunch today (the downside of cooking big complicated dishes is eating them for several days.) I mulled about what had gone awry. I realized it wasn't the food, it was my attitude. If I stopped thinking of it as lasagna it became more palatable. When I thought of it as a lovely, cheesy side dish I loved it a little bit more. But what would I call it- polenta pudding?

I am guessing there is a larger life lesson here.

Cooking with Gas

Last night I left work a little early to make chile rellenos for my annual Mexican/birthday Fiesta in January. If you are a Capricorn you either embrace the season and throw a sliding party or you search the cuisine of the Southern Hemisphere to find an appropriate way to pretend the weather outside is balmy. As a young girl sliding parties seemed adequate. Now tequila & tamales seems a far better way to go. But, I digress....

We finally had a hard frost a couple of nights ago necessitating the garden purge. All fruits and vegetables were picked and shuttled to our house for safekeeping. This means everything needs to be eaten, frozen, cooked.... or composted. The poblano chile crop tipped the scales at about 1/3 bushel. That's a lot of chiles!

It is also a lot of chile rellenos. I roasted, skinned,and deseeded for about three hours. The on to the actual assembling. I stuffed them with Monterrey jack cheese, dipped them in egg and then dredged them in corn meal.... for a gluten free relleno. I fried. They cooled. Then I wrapped them all between layers of plastic wrap and into the freezer. My party will be in January.... it almost makes you long for winter!

Bon Apetit!

Tortilla-ria!

I had been dreaming of making homemade corn tortillas for a while. The boyfriend bought a tortilla press a few weeks ago so there was really nothing standing between me and my dream.

I had found a couple different recipes for tortillas. Some called for shortening and some didn't. I decided to try the recipe that came with the press to start: 2 cups masa harina, 1 1/3 cups water & 1 teaspoon salt. It doesn't get more basic than that.

After allowing the mixture to sit for 20 minutes we got to work pressing tortillas. You have a choice of using wax paper or plastic wrap to line the press. We tried wax paper first. It stuck terribly so we threw the whole shebang in the garbage. After a bit of cursing and straightening of plastic wrap we put the first ball of dough in the press and Presto! One corn tortilla! But I had neglected to properly center the ball of dough so it squeezed unevenly out the side of the press. Lesson learned.

We made the whole batch with varying degrees of success. I think a little shortening in the recipe would help it stick together a little better. I will try that next time. But I must say they were delicious even if they didn't stay together as well I would like. They have a nice tooth and are not overwhelmingly corn-y. We turned them into some delicious shrimp tacos.

Cooking With Gas

I am a terrible eater. Big revelation-Huh?

It isn't that I don't like food. I like good food, and despite my lack of the sense of smell I am pretty good at distinguishing tasty food from not so tasty food. Except for that one experience where I actually ate something rancid and had no clue...... LYC can tell ya'll about that.

My problem is that eating is one more chore in my day to get out of the way. I am driven by what my mother taught me is nutritional and what is available.

My boyfriend is well aware of this problem. He was disgusted with my refrigerator when we started dating. There was cheese, tuna fish, chicken sausages, and.... well, that is about it. The food was easy and kept my finely tuned, Ferrari of a human body going. He now fills the freezer with good vegetables and soups to keep me fed during his annual stay in Florida.

So... after my Mexican party I found some things that needed to be used up. (I also HATE the idea of food being wasted or thrown out) So what do you do with a 16 oz. container of sour cream? My solution to any surfeit is to make muffins. They are the great absorber of leftovers. Old rice? Refried beans? Jelly? Polenta? Sour Cream? Throw it in!

But to my dismay, it was a container of no-fat sour cream. Not just low-fat, it was no-fat. I tried a dollop of it. Blech. But I thought that putting it in with other ingredients would mask the chalky flavor. No dice. I don't know which one of my esteemed guests was responsible for this blaspheme of a food product, but I will track them down. Probably my health conscious brother and his skinny as a rail wife.

So what does this have to do with being a terrible eater you may ask? Well- I choked down all 12 of those muffins this week- those anemic, chalky muffins slathered with butter in an attempt to mask their flavor. They tasted like crap, but it was easier than pouring a bowl of cereal.

Day Of Domesticity

Happy Columbus Day! Thank goodness North America was discovered or I might be an English peasant or something.

I spent the day washing all the windows in the house. It is not as terrible as it sounds- after a week of whining to my friend Louise about the impending task. I put on a selection of cleaning music:
Annie Lennox- Bare
Kristen Hersh- Strings
Paris Combo- Attraction
Jane Siberry- Bound By the Beauty
Bossacucanova- Brasilade
Somehow music played loudly makes many tasks bearable. A little something to shake your cleaning booty to.

Then I was left to make a side dish with our leftover bounty of eggplants and peppers. I was recently taught to make capanata by my godchild, Hannah. It is a wonderful thing when small children grow up and can teach you a thing or two. She is 26 now, but I remember her clearly at 4 years old. She was wise at that age too. She helped me with my computer skills when I was trying to write my thesis in graduate school. It is a very humbling experience to have a 4 year old help you.

I am pretending I am Pioneer Woman here- what with the beautiful cookery & photography. So you dice up peeled eggplant and saute with olive oil, garlic, shallots (from the garden if you are lucky). It is suppose to have Kalamata Olives. I didn't have any, so in go the black olives. In go the capers too.
Fresh tomatoes are best, but what we have is rotting instead of ripening... so in goes the canned tomatoes.

I'll be serving this with roasted chicken.... mmmmm.

Practice Makes Perfect... Or Putting My Best Self Forward

This is a picture of me and most of my siblings. My oldest sister is missing because she lives in New Mexico now. It was taken this past Mother's Day as I teach my much more tech-savvy siblings how to blog. What better image to illustrate what I am going to talk about.

I baked those cookies last night to take to a client, Maureen. I ran into her in the grocery store two days ago. I asked how she was. Fine, I asked how her mother was. Dying. She broke down in front of the deli counter and told me her mother was in her last days. She was buying cold cuts because her two brothers and family were flying in from around the country to say goodbye. I asked because her mother was not only a client, but also someone I thought was a lovely and interesting woman. I knew she had moved here to be closer to some of her family in her retirement.

I couldn't stop thinking about it. I had hugged Maureen even though human contact and empathy are not my forte. I wanted to do something more. It popped into my head that I should bake cookies. She is still alive, but not for much longer. Are cookies too festive? It is tradition to bring food to the home of someone who has died to help the family deal with the onslaught of visitors. She hasn't died- is this wrong? Do I put a card on top of the plate of cookies and just leave it at the door? Too cowardly. This is an exchange that requires talking. So awkward. I thought what I would want and I realized how thankful I would feel for anyone showing up at my door. I pushed myself to complete what I had thought to do.

I baked the cookies and then on the drive to work I thought of a million reasons that I couldn't drop them off at her house. I had never been there so I drove past a few times trying to find it. I drove up the long driveway. Only two cars in the driveway. Rang the bell. Long wait. And there she was- she burst into tears again. She told me "You are amazing." "I came back from the grocery and told my husband that I saw you. Tried to keep it light, but you asked about my mother. I had to tell you and it was like someone had sent you to ask me that question." I assured her that it was an answer that required practice- saying someone has died or is dying. I was just a good person to practice on. "I couldn't wait to get home and tell my Mother that you had asked about her." And again she said "you are amazing."

I don't repeat that bit about "amazing" so that everyone will know I am amazing, but so that everyone understands the sort of response you might get from following through on a very tiny act of kindness to another. I feel good for having done it. And I resolve to try to do it again.

When my own husband died I had a group of friends who gathered around me (along with my family) to make sure I didn't completely fall apart. My friend, Louise, moved in with me so I didn't have to fall asleep alone for the first three weeks. She fed me and listened to me cry myself to sleep while she slept on the most uncomfortable couch in the world. My friend, Michelle, took my dog into her home in such an unassuming way that I didn't notice Lady was gone. I couldn't care for myself, much less my dog. My friend, Annie, sat Shiva, which I don't think I ever would have understood without her. I am not too Jewish. Even my brother-in-law, Andy, who silently served cosmopolitans to a bunch of us one evening... dropping a new cherry in each fresh new glass so we could keep track of how much we imbibed. Some of us ate the cherries though. People do that for each other.

Loss is a part of living. Sometimes it feels too close though- my two little sisters, pictured above, have battled cancer -breast & retinal melanoma. My mother is a great-grandmother. I worry about losing anyone else, but I know I am surrounded by amazing people.

Baking Gluten Free Cookies

I decided to bake some of my extra good gluten- free peanut butter, chocolate chip cookies. They are extremely easy and very satisfying considering they have no flour in them. (peanut butter, sugar, egg, baking soda, salt, peanuts & chocolate chips- that's it!) Another gluten- free girl double checked with me to make sure they had no flour because they are sooooooo good.

Here they are in the baking pan.... which suffered a little damage during my last cookie baking party with 5 small girls. These double walled cookie pans are actually pretty terrible. They do keep cookies from burning but water sneaks in between the walls during washing and then sits there to rust and leak inside of your cabinets.

Here is the cookie baking operation- pretty seamless- eh? You would think I did this for a living.

And ..... here are the finished products- minus a few. I can't resist them when they are hot. Besides I had to counteract that green smoothie I drank the other day.