Ravings of a Textual Deviant

This is not the Top Secret Family Cabbage Recipe that I acquired from my ex-coworker, but it does feature a similarly heavy dose of starch, and is likewise really not kosher or vegetarian.

The base of this dish is mashed potatoes. I prefer to make mashed potatoes by boiling cubed red potatoes in salted water until they’re soft, then adding in butter and either milk or fat-free Greek yogurt as part of the actual mashing process. If you’re feeling ambitious, you could also add in chives, or tarragon, or whatever herbs you prefer. Bear in mind that the potatoes are the base, however, not the main attraction.

Next, I diced an onion and sliced up the cabbage (I had one small head each of purple and green cabbage, which was a very nice touch, I thought.) If I’d had a leek to hand, it would’ve gone in as well. Over medium heat, I sauteed the onion in olive oil until it was just starting to brown, and then added in the shredded cabbage. Don’t worry if you think you’ve got way too much cabbage when start; it cooks down a lot. I kept the additional flavorings pretty light, only adding black pepper and caraway, and deglazing the pan with water when the fond started to develop.

To finish it off, I put some sliced Canadian bacon on top of the cabbage, and let it warm up. Had I been paying more attention, I would have cut it up a bit more and started it with the onions…but I was distracted, and I’m please to have remembered it at all. You could probably easily substitute ham, or sausage, or any other pork or faux-pork product you prefer (turkey-based, tofu based, etc.) here as well, so long as it is fully cooked by the time you’re done.

To serve, first put down a layer of mashed potatoes. Add the cabbage and Canadian bacon right on top of the potatoes. Sprinkle some shredded cheddar cheese over the top, stir the lot of it together, and devour.

Over the weekend, I was simultaneously making tomato sauce from scratch and getting the yellow beans ready to blanch and freeze. I had chopped onions and tomatoes everywhere, when I realized that I didn’t have any containers to put the beans in to freeze them.

Fortunately, I did need to bring a side dish to a gathering that evening.

I cut the yellow beans into bite-sized pieces, and boiled them just enough to get rid of that fuzzy/sticky, spilled-beer-on-industrial-carpet feel that they have when raw. I sauteed up some of my onion and garlic in a generous amount of olive oil, and added in the cooked beans. Next into the pan were chopped tomates, followed up by some oregano. Not only did they make a very good side dish, the leftovers were the next day’s main dush, reheated with cooked chicken and corkscrew pasta stirred in.

As for homemade tomato sauce, there are millions of ways to go about it, but they all start with a couple of pounds of chopped tomatoes slowly simmered until they start to fall apart. I usually scoop most of the tomato base into a blender and puree it, then return it to the pot; I like my sauce a little bit chunky. Sauteed onion and garlic went into the pot, along with some red wine vinegar and red wine. After the alcohol cooked out, I reduced the heat to a low simmer and stirred in oregano, basil, parsley, thyme, rosemary, black pepper, salt, and anchovy paste. 20 minutes later, I stirred in a small can of tomato paste and some truffle oil. After that, another 10-15 minutes over medium-low heat, to let the flavors come together. I was feeling lazy, so I skipped the eggplant and squash, but when I ladled the sauce over the pasta, I didn’t find myself missing anything.

1. Went to Ari & Kim’s brit ahuvim in Portland. Didn’t have nearly enough time to spend either with family or in Portland itself. Lovely people, lovely ceremony, lovely guest house, lovely city, lovely restaurants (Typhoon!, Pix, Common Grounds, and Kappaya all highly recommended for dining; the Blue Bird Guesthouse is a great place to stay.) Even the flights weren’t too bad; we sat next to the World’s Quietest Baby on one leg of the trip. (I had no idea that such a thing as a Quiet Baby existed!) I love walking around Portland, and not just because it’s actually POSSIBLE. The guest house was very convenient to Portland’s awesome public transit system. We went to the Japanese garden (Lost track of all the lovely water features, viewing areas, etc. Was also very entertained by watching parents try to keep their spawn out of the koi ponds.) and the Rose Test Garden (wish I could bottle that smell), as well as the obligatory pilgrimage to Powell’s Books. Tried Thai iced tea for the first time—it was a lovely, orangey-saffron color and spicy; couldn’t resist.

Every time I visit Portland, it gets harder to come back to Indy. I’m torn; I feel an obligation to do my part to make Indy a little weirder, but I’m really swimming upstream here…even in the only blue square in the red state.

2. Trying to figure out what to do with all the produce from the CSA basket. All the various and assorted chilis have been chopped and dried for later use. I’ll be blanching and freezing the green and yellow beans as well, in order to give myself some more breathing room. And OMFG, the tomatoes!!! I am inundated with tomatoes; I’ve made homemade salsa and eaten enough caprese salad to feed at small village in Capri. I’ll be attempting from-scratch tomato sauce tomorrow, I think, which will provide me with an outlet for any lingering squashes and eggplants. Made a small but delicious batch of baba ganoush from the fuschia eggplants. Mushrooms have gone into everything from a mushroom-pancetta-surimi omelette and pizza to the five-spice duck and cabbage that I made to use up some of my generous cabbage allotment. A work buddy from a former job just sent me his Top Secret Family Scottish Cabbage recipe, which I will have to try out. I had to get special dispensation just to use Irish oatmeal. Using up the watermelon was a snap; I ended up trading half of it to my dad in return for a canteloupe the size of an f***ing basketball. There are still some peaches sitting about that’ll end up either in a dessert or a jam experiment, and we’ve got some fresh corn calling out to be grilled.

3. Work, work, and more work. I cancelled a status meeting last week because I knew everybody was too busy working to tell me about their status, so I asked for email reports instead, and offered extra points for creativity. 25% of my team responded with hand-drawn cartoons. My team rocks! Other than that; lots of process changes are starting to hit at the same time as three massive projects are peaking at one of my clients’ sites.

4. Picked up a Wednesday-night yoga class to teach downtown at a corporate fitness center (very nice facility; first class went seemed to go well). Might pick up a Tuesday night class after Labor Day back at Lawrence Township, which would be pretty awesome. I always like having a class that’s open to the public so that I can send people there when they ask where I teach. I have also got an irregularly-scheduled Monday night class with private clients in Boone County. Awesome group to teach, and again, a very nice location with lots of wall space.

5. Did a weekend yoga teacher training on Anatomy and Alignment the weekend after getting back from Portland. My main motivation was needing the continuing education units to maintain my certification, and I always forget how totally awesome the experience is in and of itself. I particularly liked the new way my school is teaching anatomy; they’ve gone from a yoga-slanted medical textbook to a combination of a great visual reference book and a yoga-centered anatomy manual.

6. Completely ignored GenCon, other than having some of Spouse’s friends staying with us for the weekend. Very nice people; we’ll have to spend some time when none of us is trying to do something else. Whenever that happens.

7. Trying to learn a thing or two whilst getting the household finances in order.

8. Putting off buying tickets and booking hotel for Chicago in October and Rochester in November. Won’t be able to go to cousin’s wedding in New York in October on account of it being the weekend before Brother-in-Law’s wedding in Chicago. There is only so much time and energy for travel this year, and mine is all allotted already.

9. Semi-successfully getting back to the gym semi-regularly. Have put on about 20 pounds more than I need in the last 18 months or so, and I want it gone. Should probably eat less chocolate. *Sigh* Having better luck with home yoga practice, but not as much as I would like. Never enough time when my stomach is empty. (Yoga on a full stomach is a Very Bad Idea. Nobody wants to end up in Downward-facing Bad Dog.)

10. Unearthed house from dirty laundry, dirty dishes, dust, lint, junk mail, cat hair, cat litter, and other random debris. More or less maintaining it most of the time.

11. Spouse and I are both appearing in this year’s From Dark Pages (scroll down to October) at Morris Butler House, $DEITY help us. They’re using the Faust scene that I wrote, which thrills me to the tips of my toes; I love that scene. I also wrote the Richard Burton scene, if strategic purloining of film dialogue and rearranging it to suit my specific, demented purpose counts as “writing”. I think I can safely saw that this is probably the first year that “stuffed squid” will appear on the prop list for this show. Anyway, I’m told that the tickets are going fast, so go get yours.

12. Saw The Dark Knight. Not all that time-consuming, really, but I wouldn’t want you to think I’m living under a rock or something.

13. Getting ready for my mother’s birthday tea. Mom plays Queen Victoria for Morris-Butler House’s Queen’s Birthday Tea event, and I thought it would be nice for her to have a birthday tea that was more to her own taste than Vickie’s. And it’s a darned good thing; I couldn’t find clotted cream, Devonshire cream, rose petal jam, or quince jam in this town to save my life. (I did find the quince paste that the Spanish restaurant serves on its manchego, though, so it wasn’t a total waste of effort.) Fortunately, Mom likes blueberry jam and creme fraiche just fine.

In case you ever have a burning desire to throw my mom a tea party, we had scones with butter and the aforementioned blueberry jam and creme fraiche; cucumber & chevre tea sandwiches; smoked salmon and chive cream cheese tea sandwiches; bleu cheese, walnut, and pear tea sandwiches; petit fours; yellow cake with chocolate frosting and edible flowers; and black tea. I take my afternoon tea seriously, I do.

13. And in the mean time, I’ve been trying to get in some down time; nap, yoga, read, cook/bake, catch up with friends, do a little gaming on the side. If it makes you feel better, O Reading Public, I haven’t been doing much writing off the blog either, so you’re not missing anything. My creativity has been on hold for a while now, and I’m finally starting to feel it come back. I spent a ridiculous amount of money on beads in Portland, and I still have no idea what I’m going to do with them. I do, however, have plans and materials for a couple of decorative, fabric, thangka-type wall hangings for the living room that need to be put together while I can still find my notes.

Stick with me. I’ll try to start writing again soon.

Today, I wrote and mailed the check to completely pay off my student loan from graduate school!

So, I still haven’t done anything with the beets from week 1 (and really need to at this point). I did use the rest of the cabbage and the green pepper, though, in the following manner:

Saute one small chopped onion and chopped green pepper in olive oil. Optionally, add in some cubed bacon or pancetta. Add shredded cabbage and caraway or fennel. When the cabbage is cooked, deglaze the pan with red wine vinegar.

The zucchini, yellow squash, another green pepper and one of the eggplants went into a batch of spaghetti sauce, along with half of the mushrooms. The other half of the mushrooms went into an asparagus, mushroom, and crab surimi risotto that got stuffed into the remaining green pepper and a couple of red pepppers, then topped with a little bit of cheese and baked.

Still untouched from week 2 are one small eggplant, the napa cabbage, and two cucumbers.

Mama Duck hatched me
I’m ugly as I can be
Other ducks won’t quack with me
Turn their back on me
Just want a lack of me
In the barnyard family
I don’t know yet
That I’m a cygnet
I leave the nest
‘Cos mama knows best
And I head out west
For a place to rest
Flying fast as I can
To Detroit, Michigan
Take my swan sound
On down to Motown
Now I’m on the one
And havin’ some fun
Listen to my swan song
Don’t treat your chicks wrong
And don’t you go punkin’
This ugly duckling

Still left over from Week 1 - three small beets, half a head of cabbage, half a head of lettuce, and a small green bell pepper. I am of a mind to make colcannon with the remaining cabbage, and roast the beets with rosemary and olive oil (small portion won’t matter, as spouse doesn’t care for beets anyway), and serve the lot of it with some sort of fish.

Speaking of which, remind me to post the fish taco recipe sometime.

New for Week 2 - two more small green bell peppers, a head of napa cabbage, two miniature Asian eggplants (bright, bright purple!) three small cucumbers, a zucchini, a pomegranate-shaped yellow squash, a handful of cherry tomatoes, fresh basil and parsley, and a hefty bag of mushrooms.

I think that the zucchini, squash, and peppers are going to end up in a chunky vegetable tomato sauce over pasta, and I’ll try something from my relatively-new Indian cookbook for the eggplant and napa cabbage. The cucumbers and tomatoes will probably end up in a salad with last week’s lettuce and some marinated mozzarella. And maybe I’ll break out the food processor for some homemade pesto sauce, using the herbs.

A: You cannot get nine women together and have a baby in one month.

B: I did it because I was told there would be extra credit. And when I was a student, if there was extra credit, you did it.
C: There is, but the reward is virtual.
D: Are you saying that virtual is its own reward?

E: It’s a staff meeting. As opposed to a strep meeting.
D: I’ll penicillin it in.

F: Looks like the honeymoon is over.
A: That means I’m moving into spouse mode, and you do not want that. Just ask my husband.

We’ve had a fair bit of green salad lately, what with all the lettuce that came in the CSA box. I like variety, and I found, in one of my cookbooks, an excellent addition to the leafy greens.

Slice a small log of very cold goat cheese into medium rounds. Dip each round into beaten egg white, then coat with finely ground almonds. Fry the goat cheese rounds in a little bot of olive oil just until the almonds are brown and fragrant. Serve on top of mixed greens, arugula, or spnach.

Also, for an awesome ice cream topping or salad addition (but not a floor wax), slice some strawberries into a bowl, and let them sit in the fridge for an hour or so with a little bit of balsamic vinegar.

After an interesting day at work, I decided to fall back to one of my favorite, simple meals.

It started with a basic green salad, using the smaller head of lettuce and both cucumbers from the CSA box, as well as some tiny tomatoes I had picked up at the farmer’s market. (Hey, it’s a quick solution for adding vegetables to a meal.)

I had some refrigerated pierogi from Trader Joe’s, which only needed a few minutes in boiling water, and a sauce. For that, I sliced up the mushrooms from the CSA share and sauteed them in a mix of butter and olive oil on medium heat. While they were cooking, I chopped up some crab-flavored surimi (usually I prefer lobster-flavored for this dish, but both are good, or you can skip it altogether and add extra mushroomsfor a vegetarian version) and added it to the mushrooms. As soon as it was warm and blended, I deglazed the pan with vermouth, and let the alcohol cook off. I added some alfredo sauce from a jar, stirred everything together, and reduced the heat. Finally, I stirred in some dried parsley. The sauce thickens up very nicely on low heat, and is also good on pasta, mashed potatoes, and rice.