As someone who has a roundtrip daily commute (3 – 3 ½ hours door-door) and a stressful day job, I don’t have a lot of time for indulging in cooking either before or after. Mornings I’m up at 6 and take care of some household chores before I leave, and when I get home, I need the hour or 2 left after eating for quiet “down time”.
As a result, all of my cooking “aspirations” are left for weekends and, better yet, vacations. (Even weekends seem to fly by, my time occupied with chores, resting up and driving around on suburban roads filled with horrid drivers – whatever happened to using your turn signal, by the way?).
The best vacations for cooking – for me (I don’t like the hot weather and can rarely be bestirred to boil water, much less cook) – are autumn vacations. I usually take 2 weeks in the fall and I’m in the middle of my last fall vacation week right now.
I had a lot of ideas in my head for things I wanted to try. I’d seen “Julie and Julia” twice and had made a wonderful braised beef roast from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. I. It got my mouth watering – figuratively as well as literally – for some more excellent repasts. In the past few weeks I'd made some homemade baked beans, as well as some sweet quick breads.
Here’s my report card for this week’s cooking and eating, so far this week:
Mom and I are still working on the superb chicken noodle soup I made the weekend before last. I like my soups thick and hearty and this one was filled with chopped vegetables, a wealth of chicken meat from the leftover roast chicken I used, and when I added the medium width egg noodles? Oh, Mama! I’d had it with a rich brown bread with a nutty, slightly sweet taste (Ecco Panis bread purchased from the S&S – but excellent and fresh!) and butter. Simple and smashing. Today I had the soup again for lunch (the remainder has now been packed away in the freezer – always a boon for the busy commuting working girl, having that secret container tucked in there that can provide a fast and wonderful meal at work – and keeps me from having to shell out the god-awful $10 for a sandwich and a soda!) along with some roasted garlic chiabatta and dill hummus. Perfect taste combo, if I do say so myself!
I’d made tomato sauce with hot Italian sausage on Monday night. I fill it with zucchini and green peppers and I am still fortunate to have parsley and oregano going strong in my herb patch. Did I mention I like strongly seasoned and flavored, very hearty dishes? That night we had it with fettucine fini, but for another night I bought some of the ready-made pasta - chicken stuffed this time. (I've got pasta sauce in containers in the fridge and freezer because I seem to think I'm cooking for an armored tank division or something! There are only 2 of us here, for crying out loud!)
Yesterday I got the urge to make something with apples – I bought 6 Granny Smith apples without having the foggiest notion what to make. wasn’t looking for the time investment required for a pie (or the frustration of the crust!) so I glanced through a few cookbooks and found a terrific apple crisp which included oatmeal, which I like for the texture. I went out on a limb and added some dried cranberries, a dollop of honey, some lemon zest and some crushed walnuts (none of which the recipe called for – it was from Julie’s “How To Cook’ cookbook and it was great although a tad on the dry side). Unlike the other crisp recipes, it called for the crumb pastry to be lined on the bottom, as well as put on the top, so the apples and juices cooked down as well as up. It was terrific – flavorful and just spicy enough without that cloying sweetness that ruins the bite of the apples. Mom suggested it would have been better with vanilla ice cream, but she’s on pre-diabetes watch, so no ice cream for her! She had some warmed up for lunch and I'm planning to sneak a snack soon, too!
For dinner I made a sesame chicken with broccoli and red sweet pepper strips. Alas, too much sauce and now I know better than to add the veggies from the beginning. They were like limp little sponges and while tasty, not as appealing as I’d hoped. The chicken, however, fell off the bone and was wonderfully flavored.
Tonight it’s an old favorite. It’s been raining, windy, damp and chilly – a real autumn day – so I’m going with meatloaf, mashed potatoes and green peas. (Mom’s choices for veggies…you can’t mess with tradition!). For my meatloaf I add chopped celery, onion, an egg, a packet of onion soup mix, fresh parsley, bread crumbs, a dollop of barbecue sauce (hickory smoked) and a dash of hot sauce as well as the all-important Sazon seasoning. I bought powdered mashed (I’m on vacation, for heaven’s sake!) and frozen green peas (I haven’t seen a fresh pea in longer than I can remember). I like to drain the peas, then add a pat of butter and a dash of some dill into the hot peas and then they have a lovely little herby flavor.
For later in the week, I pulled out a recipe that looks good for savory corn bread, and with it I’m planning a black bean soup, and, somewhere in the vacation madness, a pie. I haven’t made a full pie from scratch since I was in my 20’s, so I’ll buy the Pepperidge Farm ready made dough and will go for making the guts of the pie from scratch, instead. Given my lack of expertise with pie dough, I’m thinking that is the safest bet, anyway! And I’ll buy whatever berries they’ve got for sale.
And for an easy night, maybe Sunday as I contemplate my return to the salt mines, probably a pumpkin soup (topped with thinly sliced scallions and a dollop of sour cream, and a greens salad with bacon bits on top – dressed with balsamic vinaigrette – this is a taste sensation I discovered during the summer and I’m smacking my lips just thinking about it now! Besides it is literally about 20 minutes from start to finish and it is a nice light meal.
It’s been great fun working with food this week: the, spices,the smells, the tastes and the sensations – and it’s cheaper than therapy no matter how you slice it!
Once vacation is over it is time for the holidays and all those old favorites. But this year I'll make sure to try some new things in the mix, too!
Cook happy!
